MMFA 2015: From Gainsborough to Moore

From Gainsborough to Moore
200 YEARS OF BRITISH DRAWINGS

April 15 - August 16, 2015

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is exhibiting some forty British drawings from its permanent collection in its graphic arts centre. The works represent 200 years of British Drawings and range from Gainsborough  to Moore.

This exhibition includes works by Beerbohm, Burne-Jones, Chadwick, Cotman, Cox, Flaxman, Gainsborough, Gilpin, Moore, Mortimer, Nash, Nicholson, Richardson, Romney, Rowlandson, Ruskin, Sandby and Solomon, as well as a magnificent monumental watercolour by Turner.

Since works on paper are fragile and their exposure to light must be limited, this will be one of the few times visitors will be able to view this prestigious collection of works. 

The variety of styles and subjects reflect British art and culture from the mid-eighteenth to the late twentieth century. While landscapes understandably dominate the exhibition, portraits, figure studies, genre scenes, caricatures and religious subjects are also presented.

Here is one of the MMFA’s recent acquisitions: Oedipus and his Daughters by John Flaxman, one of the most influential artists of the neoclassical movement, and the most famous sculptor in England during his lifetime. The drawing illustrates Oedipus at Colonus, the second play in Sophocles’s Oedipal trilogy. Oedipus is seated at centre, rejected by the men of the village of Colonus over his tragic, unwitting marriage to his own mother, Jocasta, who hanged herself upon realizing the truth. Having blinded himself, Oedipus sits with his two devoted daughters, Ismene and Antigone.

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