In an Australian first, the Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours exhibition will take up residence at the Art Gallery of Ballarat from May 20, offering a rare opportunity for visitors to see these awe-inspiring works on paper.
Running until August 6, Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours will offer an intimate and rare peep into the world of the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their works, including portraits they made of each other, studies for paintings and commissions, and subjects taken from history, literature and landscape.
Founded in 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood reverted to the simplicity and directness of Medieval and Renaissance art, revolting against the triviality of genre painting at the time. While their principal themes were initially religious, the Brotherhood also used subjects from literature and poetry, especially love and death.
Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours draws from the collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to chart the story of the artists’ lives and loves featuring works by John Ruskin, William and Jane Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal.
The exhibition In the Company of Morris will also open on the same day, showcasing an exhibition of historical and contemporary Australian artworks that demonstrate the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and, in particular, the 19th-century visionary thinker, designer, writer and artist William Morris. In the Company of Morris will feature work by artists like Louis Abrahams, Janet Beckhouse, Emma Davies, Robert Dowling, Lionel Lindsay, William Strutt, Paul Yore and many more.
Pre-Raphaelites: Drawing and Watercolours will run at the Art Gallery of Ballarat between May 20 and August 6. Find out more on the website here.
