13 March – 14 June 2020
The Enchanted Interior, the major new exhibition at Guildhall Art Gallery, has unfortunately had to close its doors to the public due to the current health crisis. This powerful exhibition will instead be available to enjoy online with exclusive virtual tours of the exhibition led by the curator, Katherine Pearce.
Turning the historic depiction of women on its head, this empowering show sees artworks by Pre-Raphaelites placed alongside modern and contemporary works by female artists including Martha Rosler, Maisie Broadhead and Fiona Tan.
Through these videos, visitors can now engage with these mesmerising and exciting artworks remotely, enabling online visitors to challenge the idealisation of women as passive beauties, exploring female empowerment and reclaiming female identity. You can access the virtual tour here: cityoflondon.gov.uk/enchanted. along with images of the exhibition here:
The Enchanted Interior explores the recurring motif of female subjects in art, as depicted in enclosed, ornate interiors. Such images are inherently alluring yet sinister, carrying implications of enforced isolation. This theme is prevalent in nineteenth-century British painting, with many Pre-Raphaelites and Orientalists showing a fascination with the so-called ‘gilded cage’. Visitors encounter work by a breath-taking variety of artists from the high Victorian through to Art Nouveau, Aestheticism, Surrealism, and pieces by contemporary female artists, who ‘speak back’ to the historic tradition.
The exhibition features works by artists including Edward Burne-Jones, Evelyn De Morgan, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Emma Sandys, Francesca Woodman, Fiona Tan, John William Waterhouse and Clementina Hawarden.
The Enchanted Interior is brought to Guildhall Art Gallery in partnership with Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, and features key works from these and other national collections. Paintings, furniture, photography, film, decorative objects, sculpture, and installation interweave throughout this major exhibition, which is dazzling to the eye and thought-provoking in equal measure.
Images courtesy of Paul Clarke Photography
cityoflondon.gov.uk/enchanted.