EXHIBITIONS

PAST EXHIBITIONS

AT BRANTWOOD

Palaces and Castles
Nanette Madan
05 July-31 August 2008
Nanette’s lively and colourful oil pastel pictures often depict a solitary, whitewashed stone cottage, surrounded by nature in an idyllic Lakeland setting. Ruskin greatly approved of people that both lived in and worked from their houses – “they were their palaces and castles,” to quote from his seminal book on architecture “The Seven Lamps of Architecture,” first published in 1849. Nanette’s portrayal of stonewalls in her pictures are a visual translation of Ruskin’s eloquent prose. Nanette’s pictures also reflect the Ruskin ideal, featuring abodes and shop houses in a natural setting, that have been relatively untouched by human interference since they were first built, thereby imparting a sense of their history. (Source: http://www.brantwood.org.uk/temp_files/Press%20Releases/Press%20release%20Nanette%20Madan.doc).
Nanette Madan is an emerging artist based in West Cumbria

Proserpina and the Language of Flowers: John Ruskin’s Botanical Studies
05 March – 16 November 2008
On show will be numerous studies of plants done by Ruskin both at Brantwood and on his travels throughout Europe, including his ‘Flora of Chamonix’ a unique collection of specimens collected in the Alps. Other displays will feature extracts from his writings and items associated with Ruskin’s revival at Whitelands College of the ancient May Queen ceremonies.
(Source:http://www.brantwood.org.uk/temp_files/Press%20Releases/Press%20release%20Proserpina%20and%20the%20language%20of%20flowers.doc) .

Wall of Silence
Martin Greenland
22 November- 28 February 2009
Martin’s work speaks directly to the great tradition of English landscape painting, and so it is particularly appropriate to exhibit his work in Ruskin’ home. In 2006 Martin won First Prize at the John Moores 24 with his painting Before Vermeer’s Clouds. Brantwood’s director, Howard Hull, says “Cumbria is extremely fortunate to have a painter of Martin’s quality living and working in its midst and drawing so richly upon its landscape. His work displays that quality of the imagination that Ruskin vividly described as `brooding and dream-gifted.`” Willy Russell says of Martin’s work: “I think his painting is superb…..a striking fusion of arresting myth and exquisite landscape.”
(Source:http://www.brantwood.org.uk/temp_files/Press%20Releases/Press%20release%20Martin%20Greenland.doc).
Martin is an award winning contemporary artist.

Coniston’s Viewing Stations
Colin Taylor
07 February-22 March 2009
Paintings based on a series of viewing stations detailed in the first Lakes tourist guidebook – A Guide to the lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire written in 1778 written by Thomas West. Colin Taylor has faithfully retraced West’s footsteps around Coniston Water and painted the views from each of Coniston’s three viewing stations. The mountain views enjoyed at Brantwood also had a profound effect on John Ruskin, who lived here from 1872 until 1900, resulting in many of his own artworks and writings.
(Source: http://www.brantwood.org.uk/temp_files/Press%20Releases/Press%20release%20Colin%20Taylor.doc

AT TOUCHSTONES GALLERY, ROCHDALE

31st May – 13th July 2008
How to See Exhibition
Featured the work of pupils from Deeplish School, Alice Ingham School, and Broadfield School

THE RUSKIN LIBRARY

19th April- 28th September 2008
Journeys of a Lifetime: Ruskin's Continental Tours
Curated by Keith Hanley and Rachel Dickinson.

Ruskin and the Old Masters
10 January - 29 March
As an art critic, Ruskin is chiefly remembered for his lifelong championship of J.M.W. Turner and his defence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and patronage of artists such as Rossetti and Burne-Jones. From an early age, however, he had attempted a systematic study of the history of art, concentrating on Italian Renaissance painting, which was to remain an almost equal passion with his love of architecture. Writings following his seminal visit to Italy in 1845 soon made him a recognised authority (Source: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/ruskinlib/Pages/masters2.html).

‘Nature's Best': Flora and Fauna from the Hesketh Collection
18 October - 14 December 2008
This exhibition will showcase some of the natural history books from the Hesketh Collection which is currently on loan to Lancaster University Library from the Trustees of the Second Baron Hesketh’s Will Trust. The collection was largely formed during the first part of the 20th Century by the first and second Lords Hesketh and formed part of the celebrated library at Easton Neston in Northamptonshire. Included in the exhibition will be books on birds by John Gould, R Bowdler Sharpe and Thomas Pennant. The botanical side will be represented with works by Sydenham Edwards, Mary Lawrance and Robert Thornton. Also on show will be plates from the University Library's own copy of the Flora Londinensis by william Curtis which was printed between 1777 and 1798
(Source:http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/ruskinlib/Pages/hesketh2.html).

AT FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

Until 17 March
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Mellon Gallery (Gallery 13)
This exhibition celebrates one of the most enriching periods in the history of the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Directorship of Sir Sydney Cockerell (1908-1937). It will examine his close relationship with leading artists, writers and collectors of the period, including John Ruskin, William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Fairfax Murray, and Henry Yates Thompson (Source: http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk).

CURRENT AND UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

RUSKIN GALLERY, SHEFFIELD

Exhibition of the Collection and the Work of John Ruskin
Permanent
The Ruskin Collection is also known as the Guild of St George Collection. It contains over 900 paintings, watercolours and drawings by artists such as Thomas Matthew Rooke, John Wharlton Bunney and Charles Fairfax Murray; about twenty six works by Ruskin himself, ranging from sketches and studies after other artists, such as Turner and Carpaccio, to finished original works; over 6,300 ornithological prints by artists such as Edward Lear, John Gould and JJ Audubon and twelve Medieval manuscripts dating from the 13th to the 16th century thirty and plastercasts from the Ducal Palace, St Marks in Venice and the North West door of Rouen Cathedral, France (Source: Museum Website http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/coresite/html/ruskinc.asp) .

AT BRANTWOOD

Sculptures in Stone: Ruskin and the Gothic Architecture of Northern France
Part I (4 March – 5 July)
Part II (30 September – 13 November).
Drawn from the Whitehouse Collection held at the Ruskin Library

The Interpretative Eye
Alexander Hamilton
09 July – 27 September
Alexander Hamilton is a Scottish-based artist who is an expert in the use of the 19th Century cyanotype process, which is essentially one of the oldest photographic processes without the use of the camera. Each cyanotype plant image is a unique contemplative study with rich tones of many shades of blue, capturing the plant’s individual character.
(Source: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ruskin/documents/The%20Glenfinlas%20Cyanotypes%20tour2009.pdf). These cyanotypes were made by Hamilton during his residency at Brantwood.

THE RUSKIN LIBRARY

Victorian Artists in Photographs: selections from the Rob Dickins Collection, the Watts Gallery
April 4 - June 28 2009
This remarkable exhibition comprises more than 150 Victorian photographs, some extremely rare and many being shown for the first time. It has been selected from the collection of about 4,500 images amassed by the late Jeremy Maas and recently acquired by Rob Dickins CBE for presentation to the Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey, of which he is a Trustee. This selection brings us face to face not only with such famous Victorian artists as William Powell Frith, George Frederic Watts, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, Frederic Lord Leighton, John Everett Millais, William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but also with artists’ homes and studios, models, wives and families. John Ruskin is also well represented, through some celebrated images
(Source: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/ruskinlib/Pages/currex.html).

Summer Miscellany
4 July - 27 September
A selection of works from the Collection, chosen by Ruskin Library staff

The Interpretative Eye and Glenfinlas Cyanotypes
Alexander Hamilton
3 October – 13 December
The Brantwood cyanotypes will be shown along with the Glenfinlas work.