PRB: Pre-Raphaelites and Beyond (Walker VII)

A Stroll around the Walker VII:
PRB – Pre-Raphaelites and Beyond
Monday 14 September at 6pm 

In what may be my last ‘Stroll around the Walker’ I want to consider the ‘family tree’ of that remarkable group of artists, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Chief among them of course was John Everett Millais, who, like Benjamin West and Frederick Leighton (whose work we saw in the previous talk) was also appointed President of the Royal Academy – indeed, he succeeded Leighton in the post. 

However, it was one of Millais’ earlier appointments, as an Associate of the Royal Academy, that was one of the main factors in the disbanding of the PRB (the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood): how could you be an anti-establishment figure from within that very establishment? This happened as early as 1853, just five years after the Brotherhood was founded. Nevertheless, the style adopted by the group continued to flourish, and new generations of artists were drawn under its spell. When Rossetti was working in Oxford he met William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, for example, and, among others, he also invited John Roddam Spencer Stanhope to join them in collaborating on the murals of the Oxford Union. 

Spencer Stanhope’s niece, Evelyn de Morgan, was inspired by him in turn – making her, effectively, a third generation Pre-Raphaelite. Other women we will see include Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale – often referred to as a Pre-Raphaelite ‘revivalist’, and Annie Swynnerton, the first woman since 1768 to become an Associate of the Royal Academy, even if she never became a full Academician. 

These artists are all represented in the Walker’s collection. However, if there is an occasional lacuna, we may cross the Mersey and draw from the collection of another of the National Museums Liverpool, the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight. Please remember, I do not record my talks.