Serena Reading
The fine art collections have been enlarged by several notable bequests such as the Haslam bequest of 1949. The museum also received a steady stream of gifts from the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 onwards. From the early days of the century to the late 1960s, the Corporation made an annual purchase from the Royal Academy. Since 1985 the gallery has acquired works by contemporary British artists through a scheme funded by Preston City Council, the Contemporary Art Society and the Arts Council of England, with support from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Granada Foundation.
Paintings
Richard Newsham was a Preston lawyer who bought the work of and befriended the most esteemed artists of his time, commissioning paintings by Royal Academicians like William Powell Frith and David Roberts. He regularly made purchases from the Royal Academy exhibitions and in this way acquired some of the most well known images of the day, such as Royal Family of France in the Prison of the Temple by EM Ward and In the Bey’s Garden by JF Lewis. As a general rule Newsham avoided difficult work by experimental artists though he did, occasionally, make exceptions. One of his more unusual acquisitions, and the only one by an artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was a stunning but atypical watercolour by William Holman Hunt, The Sphinx, Gizah. The very unusualness of this piece allows us to see a now familiar artist in a new light.
Paintings
Richard Newsham was a Preston lawyer who bought the work of and befriended the most esteemed artists of his time, commissioning paintings by Royal Academicians like William Powell Frith and David Roberts. He regularly made purchases from the Royal Academy exhibitions and in this way acquired some of the most well known images of the day, such as Royal Family of France in the Prison of the Temple by EM Ward and In the Bey’s Garden by JF Lewis. As a general rule Newsham avoided difficult work by experimental artists though he did, occasionally, make exceptions. One of his more unusual acquisitions, and the only one by an artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was a stunning but atypical watercolour by William Holman Hunt, The Sphinx, Gizah. The very unusualness of this piece allows us to see a now familiar artist in a new light.
Pauline in the Yellow Dress
The iconic painting Pauline in the Yellow Dress has gained an incredible extra dimension due to the recent arrival of the bright mustard yellow dress worn by the elegant subject of the painting. The dress is on display alongside the painting in the costume gallery. Click here to find out more about its arrival.
The Devis family of painters, an artistic dynasty which originated in Preston, is well represented. Arthur Devis (1711-1787) painted group portraits, a style known as the 'conversation piece'. Often his figures have a stiff, doll-like quality to them, due to his practice of using wooden lay figures when developing poses. These he would dress in miniature suits and gowns, enabling him to complete a painting without the sitter being present. In contrast his half-brother, Anthony (1729-1816) was a painter of landscapes of which some 150 are held by the Harris Museum and Art Gallery. Arthur Devis’s sons, Thomas Anthony (1757-1810), and Arthur William (1762-1822) practised as portrait painters. The latter, in particular, had a colourful career, working in India recording the lives of ordinary Indians, before returning to England and setting himself up as a painter of portraits and historical scenes.
A catalogue featuring the work of Arthur William Devis is available from the museum shop
Watercolours
A later but equally important bequest of 19th century British painting was the Rev John Haslam’s collection of watercolours. This swelled Preston’s holdings in the English landscape tradition significantly and added important work by Samuel Palmer and JMW Turner, including the latter’s spectacular tour de force, Kidwelly Castle, Carmarthenshire.
A catalogue featuring the work of Arthur William Devis is available from the museum shop
Watercolours
A later but equally important bequest of 19th century British painting was the Rev John Haslam’s collection of watercolours. This swelled Preston’s holdings in the English landscape tradition significantly and added important work by Samuel Palmer and JMW Turner, including the latter’s spectacular tour de force, Kidwelly Castle, Carmarthenshire.
Sculpture
The sculpture collection is particularly rich in work by the generation of sculptors who rose to fame in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These so called New Sculptors reacted to the classicism of their predecessors by introducing a dynamic realism to their compositions and working in the more flexible medium of cast bronze. Frederick, Lord Leighton, William Reynolds Stevens, Gilbert Bayes and Alfred Gilbert are amongst those artists whose work represents this movement at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery.
The Mower
The sculpture collection is particularly rich in work by the generation of sculptors who rose to fame in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These so called New Sculptors reacted to the classicism of their predecessors by introducing a dynamic realism to their compositions and working in the more flexible medium of cast bronze. Frederick, Lord Leighton, William Reynolds Stevens, Gilbert Bayes and Alfred Gilbert are amongst those artists whose work represents this movement at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery.
Books
A 12th century English psalter, or prayer book, also came with the Haslam bequest. This jewel like work, containing a series of miniature paintings of musicians and Bible scenes, is significant in its own right but further interest is added by its having once belonged to the Victorian art critic and theorist, John Ruskin. Between the front cover and the fly-leaf Ruskin scribbled notes on where he acquired the book and on its care. It should, he says, be kept quite tightly closed when not in use to prevent deterioration of the paintings. The psalter is one of three examples of medieval miniature painting held by the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, the others being a drawing of Scenes from the Life of the Virgin, from the Bohemian School, and a large, historiated capital probably from the Spanish School.
A 12th century English psalter, or prayer book, also came with the Haslam bequest. This jewel like work, containing a series of miniature paintings of musicians and Bible scenes, is significant in its own right but further interest is added by its having once belonged to the Victorian art critic and theorist, John Ruskin. Between the front cover and the fly-leaf Ruskin scribbled notes on where he acquired the book and on its care. It should, he says, be kept quite tightly closed when not in use to prevent deterioration of the paintings. The psalter is one of three examples of medieval miniature painting held by the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, the others being a drawing of Scenes from the Life of the Virgin, from the Bohemian School, and a large, historiated capital probably from the Spanish School.
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