British Historic Paintings. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1984.

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Jan 13 - Apr 30

British Historic Paintings

Most of the paintings in this exhibition were acquired by the Gallery in the early Thirties as part of the collection of works donated to the Gallery by its founders. It was the Founders' intention to establish a representative collection of historical British art as a nucleus upon which the future collection would be built. In his introduction to the exhibition, Vancouver Collects, in 1973, Wylie Thom, then Vancouver Art Gallery registrar wrote: "It is to the credit of the founders that many of the paintings now considered to be among the finest in the Collection were purchased either by or from them during the early years of the Gallery's existence".

The exhibition is comprised of landscapes and portraits, typical of 18th and 19th century British art. Included is Joseph Highmore (1692-1780), the earliest artist represented in the collection. A contemporary of William Hogarth and a student of Kneller, the successor to Van Dyke in English Portrait taste, Highmore's portrait of Miss Elizabeth Hervey is one of the more striking English portraits in the collection. It will be on view along with Hogarth's Portrait of Mr. Bridgeman and others.

Love of the English countryside is reflected in the landscape of John Crome (1768-1821). Crome was the founder of the Norwich School whose principal concern was to establish a school of English landscape painting. English country life, another popular subject of the period, is represented in two paintings by George Morland, The White Horse and Post Boys and Horses.