Unseen Rossetti on Show in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, England, November 15, 2010 - A previously unseen work by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is to go on show for
the first time in a major new exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery,
The Poetry of Drawing, opening 29 January 2011.

One of the most striking works in the exhibition, Rossetti's brooding
Mnemosyne (1876, private collection) is a large-scale pastel drawing
depicting Jane Morris, wife of the designer William Morris and Rossetti's
most important muse in the last decade of his life. The drawing remained in
Rossetti's studio until his death and has been in a private collection ever
since.

Rossetti fell in love with Jane and drew and painted her repeatedly,
sometimes as herself but more often as characters from mythology and
literature. Her distinctive appearance, with her heavy dark hair and strong,
impassive features, has come to typify the later Pre-Raphaelite ideal of
female beauty. When the novelist Henry James, having seen Rossetti's
paintings of her, met Jane in person in 1869, he wrote 'It's hard to say
[whether] she's a grand synthesis of all the pre-Raphaelite pictures ever
made - or they a 'keen analysis of her - whether she's an original or a copy.
In either case she is a wonder.'

The depiction of Jane on show in The Poetry of Drawing is a study for a
painting of Mnemosyne, personification of Memory in Greek mythology. Rossetti
began work on the painting (now in Delaware Art Museum) in 1876 and completed
in 1881, the year before his death.

The Poetry of Drawing, organised by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery,
will debut in the city before touring to Sydney, Australia, next summer. The
Birmingham showing (Gas Hall, 29 January - 15 May 2011) will be the sole
opportunity for UK visitors to see the exhibition, which brings together
works from Birmingham's important collections of Pre-Raphaelite and later
nineteenth-century art, some of them rarely seen, alongside key loans from
public and private lenders. It is the most comprehensive survey of
Pre-Raphaelite drawings and watercolours ever staged.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of radical young artists who
banded together in London in 1848, revolutionised British art. This
exhibition explores the vital role played by drawing and design in the work
of the Brotherhood, their associates and followers. It includes watercolours
as well as works in pen and ink and pencil, and stained glass, textiles and
ceramics alongside their original designs. Through the portraits and
caricatures the artists made of one another and often exchanged as gifts, the
drawings also provide an insight into the Pre-Raphaelites' relationships with
their fellow artists, friends and lovers.

The exhibition includes the earliest appearances in Pre-Raphaelite art of
red-haired Elizabeth Siddal who, along with Jane Morris, was the most famous
Pre-Raphaelite model. The drawings of her on display include two studies by
Millais for Ophelia (1852), the painting for which Siddal famously posed
lying in a bath of water. In the exhibition his iconic drawing for the head
of Ophelia (1852) from Birmingham's collection is reunited with a finished
compositional study in ink for the whole painting (1852, Plymouth City Museum
& Art Gallery) for the first time. Two watercolours by Siddal are also
displayed, representing her role in Pre-Raphaelitism as a gifted artist as
well as a model and muse.

The Poetry of Drawing includes works by the original members of the
Brotherhood, including Rossetti, Millais, and Holman Hunt; their mentor, John
Ruskin; and the 'second generation' of Pre-Raphaelites such as Edward
Burne-Jones, Frederick Sandys and Simeon Solomon. It also demonstrates for
the first time the impact that Pre-Raphaelite drawing had upon
turn-of-the-century British art movements such as Aestheticism, Symbolism and
Art Nouveau, displaying work by later artists influenced by the
Pre-Raphaelites, such as Aubrey Beardsley.

The Poetry of Drawing gives an insight into how the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood challenged the art establishment of the time and influenced
subsequent artists and designers. There will be a rare chance to compare
textiles, stained glass and ceramics by makers such as William Morris,
William de Morgan and Florence Camm with their original drawings, and the
opportunity to see watercolours and drawings never seen in public before,
including significant examples by Rossetti, Arthur Hughes and Burne-Jones.

After its showing in Birmingham the exhibition will tour to The Art
Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (17 June - 4 September 2011).

Tickets for The Poetry of Drawing are GBP6 adults, GBP5 senior citizens
and students, GBP2 income support/unwaged and children 5-16, GBP12 family (up
to 2 adults, 2 children); under 5s admitted free.

Exhibition organised by Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Exhibition and accompanying book supported by

The City of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Development Trust

The Limoges Trust

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

The William A. Cadbury Charitable Trust

Image credit:

(c) Private collection c/o Christie's Images Ltd., 2010

NB This acknowledgement must be printed in full whenever image is
reproduced.

For booking further information please visit www.bmag.org.uk
or call +44(0)121-303-1966.

Media Contact: Jason Lewis: jason_lewis at birmingham.gov.uk +44(0)121-303-4266