Current Exhibition: Painting with Light Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the modern age Tate Britain: Exhibition 11 May – 25 September 2016

Prosperine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874, oil on canvas - The Odor of Pomegranates by Zaida Ben-Yusuf, 1899, Photogravure on paper

Tate Britain, London presents: Painting with Light  Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the modern age exhibition running from 11 May-25 September 2016. 

This is the first major exhibition to celebrate the spirited conversation between early photography and British art. It brings together photographs and paintings including Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic and British impressionist works. 
 

Spanning 75 years across the Victorian and Edwardian ages, the exhibition opens with the experimental beginnings of photography in dialogue with painters such as J.M.W. Turner. For the first time works by painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Singer Sargent will be shown alongside ravishing photographs by pivotal early photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, which they inspired and which inspired them.
exhibition catalogue featuring cover photograph
Decorative Study by Minna Keene, 1906
© Royal Photographic Society / National Media Museum/ Science & Society Picture Library
An exploration of the relationship between photography, painting and sculpture, from the 1840s to 1914
Photography was entangled with art from the very moment of its invention by painter and printmaker Louis Daguerre in 1839. Painting with Light is the first publication to explore photography's complex and fascinating inter-relationship with painting and sculpture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Opening with the experimental beginnings of the medium in the 1830s and 40s, the book covers the full range of photography in Britain up to the early 1900s, concluding with its flowering as a distinct art form in Pictorialism, which sought to express emotional and imaginative states through the photographic image.
 Spanning seventy-five years from the daguerreotype to very early colour photography, the book explores pioneer photographers, the Pre-Raphaelite circle and ravishing Symbolist and Pictorialist works, including landscapes and life studies, documentary and scientific realism, and images that experimented with atmospheric and psychological effects. Organised chronologically, it features essays on the camera before the1840s; David Octavius Hill's pioneering photography studio; the connections between early photographic and artistic approaches to nature; social realism; and anti-naturalism and the supernatural. It uncovers the issues raised by exchanges between photography and other media, many of them still live today, from the question of copying versus creating and truth versus lies to artist versus machine and tradition versus modernity. Mixing iconic and rarely seen works, Photography into Art includes over one hundred illustrations accompanied by refreshing new scholarship - making this the essential book for collectors, gallery goers and photography enthusiasts alike 
Tate Britain
Millbank, London SW1P 4RG, 
United Kingdom

To purchase tickets to the exhibition or for more information, Painting with Light
 

Comments

Unknown said…
Thanks Kimberly, this looks fantastic! I'll certainly visit it when I'm in London next month. A great post as always :)
Kimberly Eve said…
Hi Nick,
I know you will have a fabulous time. Thank you for stopping by :)
Hels said…
Now that is a very clever idea! The first major exhibition to document the relationship between early photography and British art. And the timing is perfect: from the 1840s to 1914.

The question which direction the inspiration came from is one I still ponder today. Particularly from the Orientalist artists.
Kimberly Eve said…
I completely agree Hels! I think about the relationship between the two often. Thanks so much for dropping by!
Kevin Marsh said…
Wow Kimberly,
I love the Pre Raph's especially Rossetti.

Thank you for sharing.
Kimberly Eve said…
Hi Kevin,
Happy to know you are a Rossetti fan. Today is his birthday. I know you'll enjoy the exhibition!
WoofWoof said…
Looking forward to going to the exhibition. I have to say that although I love Julia Margaret Cameron's work, I think the best stuff are the portraits of ordinary and famous people. I think there's a sort of dressing up box quality to some of the more complicated ones where she tries to mimic famous paintings or mythological stories, dressing up her husband and servants in various disguises. I think it shows the superiority of painting when it comes to telling a story especially something historical, classical or mythological.
Kimberly Eve said…
Hi WoofWoof,
I understand your perspective about Cameron's photography and subject matter.In her own way, Mrs. Cameron was paying tribute to artists she viewed as 'immortals.' I hope you enjoy the exhibit. Have a wonderful time. Thanks for stopping by!
WoofWoof said…
Hi Kimberly, I went along to the exhibition on Monday. It is truly fantastic. It was so interesting to see how much interaction there was between artists and photographers in those early days, and how quickly photography became an art form, and how artists quickly started to use photography to aid them in their art. I do hope it transfers to North America so you get a chance to visit yourself. I got the book as well which is very good.

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