Once in a lifetime exhibit open

IN an Australian exclusive, historic works by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are now on display at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Gallery director Louise Tegart said the Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours exhibition, previously presented at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, is a once in a lifetime experience for local art-lovers.

“It’s a rare chance for people to see these works,” she said. “They’re normally kept away in the prints room because of their fragility.

“People might be familiar with the large, grand narrative Pre-Raphaelites paintings, but this is a very different exhibition, and what’s beautiful about it is that it’s a very intimate exhibition, in terms of the scale of the works.

“It celebrates the art of drawing. Sometimes we think of drawings as watercolours as secondary to paintings, but these are exquisite artworks in their own right.”

Featured artists include William and Jane Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddal.

Radical creatives of the 19th century, they had a “passion for fidelity to nature” and aimed to comment on social issues through their subject matter, changing the face of British art.

Ms Tegart said the links and friendships between these artists is explored throughout the show.

“You start to see not only the relationships between the seven artists who established the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but then how their influence made that Pre-Raphaelitism a much bigger and wider circle over many, many years, and encompassed other artists including people like William Morris,” she said.

“There are interconnections between the friendships and the lovers, and some fantastic stories behind the artworks.

“The other fantastic thing is the inclusion of four female artists associated with the brotherhood. It shows another side, that the women weren’t just passive subjects but actively involved as artists in their own right.”

Seventy-five works are part of the exhibition, in comparison to the 100 which were shown at the Ashmolean Museum.

“The Ashmolean collection is one of the premier collections on Pre-Raphaelite artworks in the world, because of the long association of the Pre-Raphaelites and Oxford as a city, and Oxford University,” Ms Tegart said.

“John Ruskin, who was a great supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites, and there’s some works of his in this show, he gave a large number of his works to the Ashmolean and then that kickstarted that collection which has grown by purchase and bequest over the last 160 years or so.”

Blue William Morris wallpaper throughout the exhibition connects each gallery space together.

“Morris’ influence is still really felt today through simple things like his wallpapers and carpets being in peoples’ homes, and his philosophies are very contemporary, in terms of his social and environmental activism,” Ms Tegart said.

In the rooms next door to Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours is a complementary show, In the Company of Morris, inspired by Ballarat’s connections to the Pre-Raphaelites.

“The Gallery was established by James Oddie who came from England, and from this education which was based very much on the philosophies of John Ruskin and William Morris,” Ms Tegart said.

“Our gallery motto of, ‘not for self, but for all,’ is very reflective of William Morris’ ethos about art for everybody.”

Three Pre-Raphaelites even sailed out to Australia, and settled in Ballarat, with the hopes of striking it rich.

“In the Company of Morris has been curated almost entirely from our own collection, with historical and contemporary works that show the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and Morris,” Ms Tegart said.

Deborah Klein, Louiseann King, Fiona Hiscock, Carole Wilson, Ana Petidis, Tiffany Titshall, and Belinda Michael are just some of the contemporary artists featured.

Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours and In the Company of Morris will be displayed until Sunday, 6 August.