|
11 July - 30 September 2001
Sunley Room
Admission free
Supported by The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation
'Family Fortunes' returns to the National Gallery after its successful tour to Bristol City Art Museum and Art Gallery, and Bolton Art Gallery.
The exhibition of 20 paintings provides a fascinating insight into the depiction of the family. It looks at how painters have sought pictorial solutions to some of the problems raised in painting families: for example, how they have found visual means to represent dynastic succession, the continued significance of absent ancestors or the hopes for future generations - all essential elements of a family's fortune.
The exhibition includes portraits and scenes of family life dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries, including popular masterpieces from the National Gallery by artists such as Hals, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Stubbs and Degas. These works are complemented by five important loans: among them Allan Ramsay's beautiful and tender portrait of 'Thomas, 2nd Baron Mansel of Magram with his Blackwood Half Brothers and Sisters', from the Tate Gallery, painted shortly after the death of the mother the four sitters shared.
Included in the exhibition are depictions of families of every type from aristocratic portraits to the peasant families of Jan Steen and the Le Nain brothers. It opens with Barocci's 'The Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and the Infant Baptist' showing the Holy Family, a model of playful intimacy, and ends with Martin Maloney's 'We are Family', a celebratory image of three single mothers with their babies, painted last year.
The exhibition also focuses attention on shifting attitudes towards the family from the 16th century to the present day. The new sentimental appreciation of children and childish pleasures that emerged in the 18th century is reflected in three English masterpieces: Gainsborough's affectionate portrayal of his children - 'The Painter's Daughters chasing a Butterfly', Hogarth's lively and characterful 'The Graham Children' and Reynolds's portrait of 'Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons', a hymn to loving and indulgent motherhood. A less optimistic attitude toward familial relations is suggested by Degas's portrait of Hélène Rouart in which the young woman is shown surrounded by - and seemingly overwhelmed by - the objects in her father's art collection.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a video and a 16-page fully illustrated colour booklet priced £3.
June 2001
Back to 2001 Press Releases
|
|
