NEWS RELEASES
Controversial Art on Show at Horsham Museum
8th August 2007
Never before has Horsham Museum displayed such controversial art - the shocking type of art that makes mouths drop open with gasps of “They call that art?” Others may agree with a Sunday Times art critic and see the work as “unforgivably silly.” Some will, however, (those who know and like William Blake, Samuel Palmer and the Pre-Raphaelite movement and Nash), see their work as a continuation of an artistic tradition. Either way, the people of Horsham and Sussex will have a unique opportunity to see the work of The Brotherhood of Ruralists, work that Jerrold Northrop Moore remarks “may well be the last English school of art with its roots firmly in native art traditions.”
Founded by Peter Blake in 1975, the Brotherhood of Ruralists have always received mixed comments from the art world as they deliberately looked back to the artistic traditions of British art rather than more contemporary conceptualist art. As Peter Blake said of it, “Our aims are to paint about love, beauty, joy, sentiment and magic.” Although Blake has left, Graham Arnold, Ann Arnold, Annie Ovenden and Graham Ovenden still continue as members of the Brotherhood of Ruralists and it is their most recent as well as some retrospective pieces that will be exhibited and available to buy at Horsham Museum.
The exhibition will feature a wide range of artworks and styles from oils, watercolours, drawings and collage oil-paintings. With portraits to landscapes, highly multi-layered pictures to the more evocative, but all executed with a high degree of skill and talent. Works include Graham Arnold’s Kings Mirror, a complex work of art that is rich in symbolism, to the simple but no less effective Portrait of Nora by Ann Arnold.
Why exhibit at Horsham? The Arnolds lived for many years at the Sussex village of Ashington, lying at the foot of the Downs between Horsham and Worthing, before moving to Devizes and then Shropshire. There is however another telling connection, one that has a certain symmetry; Horsham became the home of John G Millais and the birth place of his grandson Raoul, both of whom became artists in their own right. John G is the son of Sir John Everett Millais, the founder of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The Brotherhood of Ruralists can be seen as direct descendents of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
The Brotherhood of Ruralists exhibition runs from 14th September to 13th October 2007. See if you agree or disagree with the art critics; it is after all up to you to decide. All Horsham Museum is pleased to do is enable Horsham to see a different type of modern art.
For further information please contact Jeremy Knight, Curator.
Horsham Museum
9 Causeway, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 1HE
Tel: (01403) 254959
Fax: (01403) 282594
Email: museum@horsham.gov.uk
Web: http://www.horshammuseum.org/