Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement

San Antonio, TX—August 26, 2019—The San Antonio Museum of Art will present the special exhibition Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement on October 11, 2019. The exhibition focuses on three generations of young and rebellious artists, designers, and makers who revolutionized the arts in Britain from 1840 to 1910. Organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Birmingham Museums Trust, the exhibition features 150 works drawn from the rich collection of the city of Birmingham, England, and includes paintings, drawings, books, sculptures, textiles, stained glass, jewelry, and decorative objects. It will be on view until January 5, 2020.
 
Harking back to the simplicity of late medieval and early Renaissance art before Raphael (1483–1520), the Pre-Raphaelites used their work to explore the relationship between art and nature, the value of the handmade versus the machine-made, questions of class and gender, and the search for beauty in an industrial age. These painters used intense new pigments, precise draftsmanship, and deliberate archaism to produce modern, vivid work that connects directly with the viewer. 

“They were acting out against the system, facing off against the Royal Academy, and soon became art stars whose work was snapped up as status symbols by newly-rich industrial moguls,” said William Keyse Rudolph, Chief Curator and the Marie and Hugh Halff Curator of American and European Art. “By the time the later Arts & Crafts movement extended their principles of clarity, social conscience, and authenticity more broadly—and eventually, internationally—into accessible design and decoration, the Pre-Raphaelites had themselves become the status quo.” 

Victorian Radicals is a comprehensive and unprecedented exhibition, celebrating three generations of some of the most influential artists in British history. They changed the practice, purpose, and perception of the visual arts by both embracing the past and laying the groundwork for the art and design revolutions of the new century. 

More About the Exhibition: 
Victorian Radicals is presented chronologically, outlining a sixty-year period across the turn of the nineteenth century.  

Late 1840s
The exhibition opens with an introduction to the academic tradition that the Pre-Raphaelites would come to reject. The work privileged by the British Royal Academy presented a narrow range of idealized or moral subjects and conventional definitions of beauty drawn from the High Italian Renaissance and Classical art. 

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Reacting against this, three young students, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt, founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Their aim was to create a new style of painting, no longer taking the High Renaissance as their reference, but turning to medieval art before Raphael, which they considered to be genuine and free. They drew inspiration from literature, the Bible, and contemporary life, with the intent of returning art to simplicity, clarity, and honesty.

The exhibition includes one of the most celebrated Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Pretty Baa-Lambs, which marks the artist Ford Madox Brown’s pioneering attempt to paint a landscape from nature in direct sunlight.

Second Wave of Pre-Raphaelites
After 1857, a younger generation of artists, including William Morris and the Birmingham-born Edward Burne-Jones, launched a second wave of Pre-Raphaelitism—still medieval inspired, featuring rich colors, an importance of narrative, and an idealistic approach to beauty. For example, Joseph Southall’s Sigismonda, features the tale from Dryden’s fables in which Sigismonda drinks the heart of her beloved with poison, after her father, enraged by his daughter’s love, strangled her lover. 

Arts & Crafts Movement 
As a protest against mass production in the industrial era, designers revived handcrafting and old techniques to emphasize the unique qualities and beauty of natural materials, inaugurating the Arts & Crafts Movement.

The influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement continued to spread until the end of the nineteenth century. New art schools emphasized the practical teaching of crafts, and Birmingham became the center of the Arts & Crafts Movement. William Morris, its leader, embodied the Pre-Raphaelite style in the decorative arts, resonating through the graceful lines of the female and plant forms.

Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement will be complemented by lectures and special events as well as a 280-page catalogue with 320 color illustrations, published by the American Federation of Arts and Prestel. 

Admission to the Museum, which includes the exhibition, is $20 for adults, $17 for seniors, and $12 for students and military with ID. Children 12 and under are always free. Please note that during our free general admission hours (Tuesdays from 4–9 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m.–12 p.m.), there is a $5 surcharge to see the exhibition.

For news updates, follow the San Antonio Museum of Art on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter #VictorianRadicals.

Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement is organized by the American Federation of Arts and Birmingham Museums Trust. This exhibition is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding provided by Clare McKeon and the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation. 


In San Antonio, Victorian Radicals is generously funded by The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation of 1992, Marie Halff, Dana McGinnis, and Toby O’Connor and is supported by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture. 

Image Captions:

Kate Elizabeth Bunce, Musica, ca. 1895–97, Oil on canvas in original frame, 40 3/16 x 30 3/16 x 1 3/4 in., Presented by Sir John Holder, Bart., 1897, © Birmingham Museums Trust, Courtesy American Federation of Arts 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine, 1881–82, Oil on canvas, 39 9/16 x 24 3/16 in., Presented by the Trustees of the Public Picture Gallery Fund, 1927, © Birmingham Museums Trust, Courtesy American Federation of Arts
Ford Madox Brown, Pretty Baa-Lambs, 1851–59, Oil on wood, 24 x 30 in., Purchased, 1956, © Birmingham Museums Trust, Courtesy American Federation of Arts.
Joseph Southall, Sigismonda (or Gismonda), 1897, Tempera on linen, 23 x 16 15/16 in., Bequeathed by the artist’s wife, Anna Elizabeth Southall, in memory of her husband, 1948, © Birmingham Museums Trust, Courtesy American Federation of Arts
Designed by William Morris, printed by Thomas Wardle & Co. and sold by Morris & Co. Kennet, design registered 1883, Indigo-discharge block-printed cotton, 24 5/8 x 37 15/16 in., Presented by the Friends of Birmingham Museums Trust, 1941 © Birmingham Museums Trust, Courtesy American Federation of Arts 

About the San Antonio Museum of Art:
The San Antonio Museum of Art serves as a forum to explore and connect with art that spans the world’s geographies, artistic periods, genres, and cultures. Its collection contains nearly 30,000 works representing 5,000 years of history. Housed in the historic Lone Star Brewery on the Museum Reach of San Antonio’s River Walk, the San Antonio Museum of Art is committed to promoting the rich cultural heritage and life of the city. The Museum hosts hundreds of events and public programs each year, including concerts, performances, tours, lectures, symposia, and interactive experiences. As an active civic leader, the Museum is dedicated to enriching the cultural life of the city and the region, and to supporting its creative community.

About The American Federation Of Arts:   
The American Federation of Arts is the leader in traveling exhibitions internationally. A nonprofit organization founded in 1909, the AFA is dedicated to enriching the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts through organizing and touring art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishing exhibition catalogues featuring important scholarly research, and developing educational programs. For more information about the AFA, visit www.amfedarts.org. 

About Birmingham Museums Trust: 
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is operated by Birmingham Museums Trust, an independent charity that manages the city’s museum collection and venues on behalf of Birmingham City Council. It uses the collection of around 1,000,000 objects to provide a wide range of arts, cultural and historical experiences, events and activities that deliver accessible learning, creativity and enjoyment for citizens and visitors to the city. The collection is one of the three great civic collections of the UK, reflecting the city’s historic and continuing position as a major international centre for manufacturing, commerce, education and culture. Most areas of the collection are designated as being of national importance, including the finest public collection of Pre-Raphaelite art in the world. Attracting over one million visits a year, the Trust’s venues include Aston Hall, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Blakesley Hall, Museum Collections Centre, Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Sarehole Mill, Soho House, Thinktank and Weoley Castle. More at birminghammuseums.org.uk.