John Everett Millais, ‘Cecil Webb’, 1887. Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria. Gift of the David Blanche family and Michael Blanche family in memory of Arthur and Yvonne Blanche through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2009.
Barbara Bryant: ‘Australia’s Pre-Raphaelite Collections: the People behind the Portraits’.
Thursday 2 July, 6:30-7:30pm
NGV International, Ground Level, Clemenger Auditorium
Cost $16 M / $20 A / $18 C, Code P1549, Ph +61 3 8662 1555, 10am–5pm daily
The idea of portraiture in Pre-Raphaelite art encompassed a new and exciting range of possibilities. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painted portraits with a stark realism that was unlike anything seen before. The meaning of the formal portrait mutated into a more direct vision of a real person, while subject paintings gained new meanings as artists cast friends and family in new roles.
Dr Barbara Bryant is an art historian and writer who specialises in the work of artists in nineteenth-century Britain. In this special lecture, Dr Bryant looks at the real individuals in the extended Pre-Raphaelite circles to explore their impact on the artistic practice of D.G. Rossetti, F.M Brown, J.E. Millais, E. Burne-Jones and G.F. Watts in the 1850s and 1860s with particular reference to works in Australian collections.
This lecture is part of a symposium on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. You must book separately for the symposium (free), which will be held on July 3-4 at the NGV. Details here.
Melbourne Portrait Group 