We are delighted to be a Corporate Partner of Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, the extraordinary Arts & Crafts home, studios, gallery and Chapel created by the great Victorian artist, George Frederic Watts OM RA (1817-1904) and his wife, the artist and designer Mary Watts (1849-1938).
Nestled in the Surrey Hills designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Artists’ Village shows paintings and sculpture by its two founding artists and also has a changing exhibition programme.
This Spring, visitors to Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village have a rare opportunity to see highlights from the Ashmolean Museum’s internationally renowned collection of Pre-Raphaelite drawings and watercolours.
Pre-Raphaelite Treasures offers an intimate glimpse into the world of the Pre-Raphaelites, presenting exquisite works by key artists from the movement including Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862).
The exhibition includes works of extraordinary beauty, from the portraits they made of each other, to subjects taken from history, literature and landscape. Displayed together, these drawings and watercolours reveal the impressive range of styles, methods and media used by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their associates, showcasing their individual skills, collective creativity and revolutionary thinking about art and society which was to have a lasting impact on British art history.
The loans are supported by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund. Created by the Garfield Weston Foundation and Art Fund, the Weston Loan Programme is the first ever UK-wide funding scheme to enable smaller and local authority museums to borrow works of art and artefacts from national collections.
The exhibition will also showcase a selection of extraordinary works on paper by Pre-Raphaelite contemporary G F Watts, from Watts Gallery’s own collection. Watts’s long career overlapped and connected with that of the Pre-Raphaelites, and his drawings reveal his knowledge of their art and the influence of their way of thinking. Treasures in their own right, these pictures are rarely shown due to the fragility and light sensitivity of works on paper.
Together, the works reveal a new side to these artists, who painted many of the most recognisable pictures in the history of British art. Pre-Raphaelite Treasures shows how these illustrious artists experimented with style, technique and subject matter to create outstanding and seldom-seen masterpieces in pencil, pen, coloured chalks and watercolour paint.
Smith Greenfield has partnered with Watts Gallery Trust – the charity responsible for maintaining Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village – to offer its Friends, Patrons and members access to its expert insurance services. And, through a special arrangement, when Friends of the Gallery take out or renew a policy through Smith Greenfield the charity will receive a donation. For further information, please visit wattsgallery.org.uk
Image: Edward-Burne-Jones, Study of a Woman’s Head turned to the Left, 1868 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford