Saturday 31st July 2021.
The Lost Heavenly Beauty of Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne. Lecture Presented by Sarah Hardy.
There are two sides to Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne. On the one hand, he was an accomplished traditional portrait artist whose work was commissioned by notable lawyers, MPs and even His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, for a portrait which was presented to Queen Victoria. On the other, his bold psychedelic canvases take us on visionary journeys through biblical stories or arresting moralizing scenes of symbolic figures. Despite success in his own lifetime, Pryne’s beautiful work is largely unknown today. Join Sarah Hardy for an in-depth retrospective of Prynne’s life and work in this online lecture.
Sarah Hardy BA (Hons) (Dunelm), MA Manchester Dip. LCM. Sarah studied Art History at Durham University before obtaining her Master’s degree in the subject at the University of Manchester. Sarah is a Victorian Arts and Crafts specialist, having researched and written widely on the subject, including William Morris’s revival of embroidery, William Blake’s influence on the Pre-Raphaelites, bookbinding and the Kelmscott Press and most recently, William De Morgan’s use of mathematics in his ceramic designs, for the De Morgan Foundation’s successful touring exhibition, Sublime Symmetry. Sarah began her museum career in the education department at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, before working on interpretation at Helmshore Mills Textile Museum, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Two Temple Place. Sarah then worked extensively on loans and exhibitions at the National Gallery and the British Library, where she completed the Institute of Art and Law Diploma on Law and Collection Management, before joining the De Morgan Foundation in 2018. Sarah is Curator-Manager of the De Morgan Foundation and a Trustee of the William Morris Society.
Saturday 14th August 2021.
The Phantom of a Flower in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix (1864-70). Lecture given by Julie Whyman.
This talk gives a new perspective on one of the most haunting Pre-Raphaelite images ever created. Considering the painting through the prism of ‘the phantom of a flower’, Julie Whyman uncovers new research and shares, for the first time, the scope of her methodology for interpreting flowers in Pre-Raphaelite art.
Awarded the John Pickard essay prize by the Pre-Raphaelite Society for her essay ‘Four Flowers and a Funeral’ (2017), Julie Whyman has a PhD from the University of York with her thesis, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Language of Flowers (2019). She gained a distinction in a Master of Studies in Arts and Literature from the University of Oxford with her dissertation Exposing the Lily: Decoding Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Sacred Paradox (2015) and published ‘Sacred Profanity: Decoding the Lily in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel”’ in Vides (2015), the University of Oxford’s annual volume of interdisciplinary essays. She is currently publishing a series of short essays on www.pre-raphaeliteflowers.com, engaging with Pre-Raphaelite flower enthusiasts around the world. Since its launch this year the site has attracted visitors from more than 55 countries.
Saturday 18th September 2021.
Bridging the Victorian/Modernist Divide: The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy in Modernism. Lecture to be given by Hannah Comer.
In the early twentieth century, modernist writers and artists revealed a significant familiarity with Pre-Raphaelite poetics and visual art. At a time when Pre-Raphaelitism is often considered to have been out of fashion, the Pre-Raphaelites were still very much of interest, being discussed, written about, their literary works read and re-read, and their artworks exhibited and used as a point of reference by modernist writers and artists. Hannah’s talk will explore some of the modernist interactions and engagements with Pre-Raphaelitism and how it shaped their work.
Hannah Comer is an independent scholar. She obtained her PhD in English Literature from the University of Birmingham in 2020. Her thesis looks at the Pre-Raphaelite legacy in Modernism. Her research on Lawrence, the Pre-Raphaelites and Persephone was included as a chapter in Defining Pre-Raphaelite Poetics (2020).
Saturday 23rd October 2021.
Annual General Meeting and Founder’s Day Lecture.
This is a free event
10.30 am. Annual General Meeting.
11.45 am. Illustrated Lecture.
Collecting the Pre-Raphaelites: Peter Rose (1927–2020) and Douglas Schoenherr (1945–2020).
Lecture to be given by Donato Esposito.
2020 was a year that shook the world with a major pandemic, but it was also one that took two collector friends in Brighton and Ottawa. United in their dual love of the Pre-Raphaelites and anything Victorian, Peter and Douglas exemplified a type of collecting and way of life that is very unusual now. Formed without great financial resources, nonetheless each amassed collections of several hundred artworks from the period 1850–1900, and which for the most part each left to their favourite public collections, both in Canada and Britain. This lecture, studded with personal anecdotes, compares and contrasts these two very different collectors.
Donato Esposito is an academic and curator who specialises in 18th and 19th-century art, collecting and taste. From 1999 to 2004 he worked as Curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum and was in 2012–13 an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His monograph, Frederick Walker and the Idyllists, was published in 2017.
All lectures will take place online via Zoom at 11am. Login details will be emailed during the week prior to the event. PRS Member ticket price - £5.00 Non-Member ticket price - £8.00. If you require further information regarding this lecture please contact - eventsprsoc@gmail.com Click here to purchase tickets online.
Created 27 June 2021