Chris Beetles Art Gallery - 'BLISS WAS IT IN THAT DAWN TO BE ALIVE' - BRITISH WATERCOLOURS & DRAWINGS 1750

The Chris Beetles Gallery is proud to announce one of the most significant exhibitions of early English watercolours since ‘The Great Age of British Watercolours: 1750-1880’ at the Royal Academy in 1993. Ten years in the making, with over 300 examples of the finest quality and condition, this substantial show will provide an opportunity to rediscover and reassess one of the most innovative periods in British art.

From the late eighteenth century, technical developments in watercolour and other portable media allowed several generations of young artists to record their experience of the world at home and abroad in fresh, and even revolutionary, ways – so paralleling the poetry of the Romantics. While retaining an individual sense of vision, many of these watercolourists banded together in societies to promote their art and so raise the status of the landscape and figure genres they made their own.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 176 page comprehensive catalogue, with newly researched and written essays and biographies, and over 300 colour images. It will be available from the gallery for £20 + £4 postage (UK only).

'BLISS WAS IT IN THAT DAWN TO BE ALIVE'

BRITISH WATERCOLOURS & DRAWINGS 1750 - 1850

1 FROM TOPOGRAPHY TO LANDSCAPE

2 ROWLANDSON AND HIS MILIEU

3 THE EXPERIMENTAL DRIVE IN WATERCOLOUR

4 PORTRAITS AND FIGURE SUBJECTS

5 THE WATERCOLOUR SOCIETIES

6 AN URBAN TOPOGRAPHER

7 THE BONNINGTON CIRCLE