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William Blake Apprentice and Master Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology University of Oxford press release Beaumont Street Oxford OX1 2PH www.ashmolean.org 13 December 2013, for immediate release: William Blake apprentice and master 4 December 2014–1 March 2015 Apprentice and Master examines the three key phases in the life and work of William Blake (1757–1827): his formation as an artist and apprenticeship as an engraver; his maturity during the 1790s, when he was at the height of his powers as both artist and revolutionary poet; and his final years, when he came to inspire and guide a younger generation of artists which included Samuel Palmer, George Richmond, and Edward Calvert. The exhibition includes more than 90 of Blake’s most celebrated works, with biographical and contextual material to elucidate his originality and his influence. William Blake was born in Soho, London, into a dissenting household, the third of seven children. At a young age, he showed artistic promise which his parents encouraged by purchasing drawings for him to engrave. He was apprenticed, at the age of 15, to James Basire, the official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries. Under Basire’s tutelage, Blake was sent out to study London’s gothic churches and, most particularly, the monuments and decorations in Westminster Abbey – an experience which was to prove formative for his later style and imagery. Following his apprenticeship, Blake was accepted as a student into the Antique School of the Royal Academy in 1779, where he was an outspoken enthusiast for Michelangelo and Raphael, to the amazement of his teachers. The first section of Apprentice and Master brings together a representative selection of Blake’s early work, exemplifying his already unorthodox approach, whether in the depiction of Gothic monuments or the human body, closing with his remarkable etching after Fuseli’s Head of a Damned Soul. In 1784, Blake opened a print shop with his former apprentice colleague, James Parker, and from this point he began to associate with the leading writers and intellectuals of radical politics such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine, who gathered at the house of publisher, Joseph Johnson. From 1790–1800 Blake was at the height of his powers, producing prints of startling originality, which anticipate by nearly a century the monotypes made by artists such as Edgar Degas from the 1880s onwards. At the heart of this section is a recreation of Blake’s printmaking studio in Lambeth, based on recently discovered scale drawings. This is complemented by a careful examination of Blake’s technical innovations in the creation of his illuminated books, which brought a new sophistication to colour printing. Among the works on display are several of the most extraordinary illuminated books, including The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and a complete set of the plates from Europe: A Prophecy, together with some of the finest separate plates, among them Nebuchadnezzar and Newton. The final gallery of the exhibition is devoted to Blake’s later career when, encouraged by his friendship with the young artist, John Linnell, he developed an interest in the great artist-printmakers of the Renaissance such as Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden. It was Linnell who commissioned the last of Blake’s great series of watercolours, the illustrations to the Book of Job and to Dante. It was these works, and above all the small woodcut illustrations to Virgil’s Pastorals, which inspired the young Claire Parris | Press Officer | Ashmolean Museum | [email protected] | T+44 (0)1865 278 178 | M +44 (0)7833 384 512 artists Samuel Palmer, George Richmond, and Edward Calvert, known as the Ancients. During the last three years of his life, they visited Blake and his wife in their two-room flat off the Strand. Apprentice and Master juxtaposes many of the works the Ancients would have seen on these visits, with their own early works. Among the most notable are Palmer’s greatest creations, the six sepia drawings of 1825; and Calvert’s exquisite woodcuts of the late 1820s Mr Colin Harrison, Senior Curator of European Art, Ashmolean Museum, says: “William Blake is one of the most popular of English artists, yet still one of the least understood. His radical politics were reflected in his extraordinary technical innovations, especially in the field of printmaking and the ‘illuminated book’. This exhibition offers new insights into this remarkable genius”. Exhibition: William Blake: apprentice and master Dates: 4 December 2014–1 March 2015 Venue: Ashmolean Special Exhibition Galleries Press View: Wednesday 3 December 2014, 11am–2pm ---Ends--- For more information please contact: Claire Parris | Press Officer [email protected] | T+44 (0)1865 278 178 | M+44 (0)7833 384 512 Tom Jowett | Press & Marketing Assistant [email protected] | T+44 (0)1865 278 285 | @AshmoleanPress Notes to editors: William Blake: Apprentice and Master is curated by Dr Michael Phillips, Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York; and Mr Colin Harrison, Senior Curator of European Art, Ashmolean Museum. Claire Parris | Press Officer | Ashmolean Museum | [email protected] | T+44 (0)1865 278 178 | M +44 (0)7833 384 512.
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