NEWS RELEASES
Beyond the Hype - Brotherhood of Ruralists at Horsham Museum
4th September 2007
Over the next month at Horsham Museum you will have the chance to see artists who still believe in the craft and skill of painting: Artists whose work is still controversial after thirty years, whose work splits the art critics, yet whose images can sell thousands of books; artists who continue to follow in the traditions of Blake, Palmer and the Pre - Raphaelite movement with its various followers; artists who have exhibited at the Royal Academy, Tate, Birmingham, Glasgow and who are represented by the Leicester Gallery in London; artists who have had books, monographs, chapters, TV documentaries and web pages devoted to them.
The Brotherhood of Ruralists, founded in 1975, today consists of four close friends Ann Arnold, Graham Arnold, Annie Ovenden and Graham Ovenden as well as, on occasion Peter Blake. Their work is currently undergoing a reassessment following on from a major study in the recently published book “The Green Fuse Pastoral Vision in English Art” by Jerrold Northrop Moore who described the Ruralists as “may well be the last English school of art with its roots firmly in native art traditions”. Come along and see why.
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, for over ten years before moving to Devizes and then Shropshire. There is, however, another telling connection, one that has certain symmetry. Millais is the name so closely linked to the Pre-Raphaelite movement; Horsham became the home Sir John Everett’s son John G and the birth place of his grandson Raoul, both of whom became artists in their own right. The Brotherhood of Ruralists can be seen as direct descendents of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Thousands of people will see the Millais exhibition at the Tate, (26th September to 13th January) a chance to see and re-assess the Victorian artist. Why not then come to Horsham Museum and see if you think his spirit lives on in the Brotherhood of Ruralists - a rare chance indeed!
The Brotherhood of Ruralists exhibition runs from 14th September to 13th October 2007. See if the hype was right - 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
http://www.horshammuseum.org/