October 2, 1973
An exceptional exhibition of English graphic art, chosen from the extensive collections of The Brooklyn Museum, ENGLISH PRINTS AND DRAWINGS: 18th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT opens at the Museum on Wednesday, October 3. Spanning three centuries, and comprised of more than 100 works, the exhibition will remain on view in the second floor Print Galleries through January 6, 1974. Admission is free.
ENGLISH PRINTS AND DRAWINGS: 18th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT has been arranged to illustrate chronologically the rise, decline, fall and new rise in this century of English printmaking. Beginning with William Faithorne (b. 1616), the first great English portrait engraver of both Royalist and Roundheads, the exhibition runs through time to recent works by Richard Hamilton; S. W. Hayter; Reg Butler; Bridget Riley; and David Hockney’s recent etchings based on poems by C. P. Cavafy. Thomas Shotter Boys, precursor of colored lithography, is represented by his finest lithographs of Paris. John Crome of Norwich, a little known but influential artist of the early nineteenth century, is represented by a charming landscape drawing.
The great English satirists and caricature artists are in abundance - George Cruikshank and William Hogarth with their vitriolic comments on English society; James Gillray with a caustic bite at Napoleon; and Thomas Rowlandson with previously unpublished drawings. The great English mezzotint artists, Valentine Green and Richard Earlom, are represented by large portraits. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, chief exponent of the pre-Raphelites contributes two major drawings - “Dante,” and “Silence.” A rare drawing, "Pass of St. Gothard," 1835, by John Ruskin the great English critic and aesthetician of the nineteenth century will be a special surprise.
In the Special Exhibition Gallery, AKHENATEN AND NEFERTITI: ART FROM THE AGE OF THE SUN KING, the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States of Egyptian reliefs, statuary and other rare objects from 1378 - 1362 B.C. will remain on view through November 25.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1973, 038 View Original
