This March through May, the Nevada Museum of Art will feature an art exhibit in Reno, showcasing three generations of young and rebellious artists who revolutionized the arts in Britain. Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelities to the Arts & Crafts Movement brings together more than 145 paintings, literary works, and decorative arts responding to pressures of the industrial past—many of which have never been shown outside the United Kingdom until now.
Art Exhibit In Reno Explores Radical Thoughts On Class, Gender, And Nature
In partnership with the American Federation of Arts, Birmingham Museums Trust organized Victorian Radicals to bring Britain’s pioneering artistic figures to American audiences. It will be on view at the Nevada Museum of Art in downtown Reno from March 7 through May 30, 2021. The Nevada Museum of Art is the second and final venue in the western United States to host the exhibition.
Attendees can travel back in time to 19th century Britain and beyond through a selection of drawings, paintings, and watercolors. Many of these artists were fond of the Gothic style for its elegance, grace, and idealized quality of life. Their vision reached canvases across the globe and inspired art movements from European Symbolism to the Bauhaus and International Modernism. The exhibition’s literary themes and contemporary lifestyles illustrate one of the most dynamic periods of British art history.
Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Art & Crafts Movement underlines past and present-day concerns. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement explored the relationship between art and nature, class and gender identity, religious themes, and the value of handmade versus machine-produced crafts. The art exhibit in Reno will feature more than 145 objects from Elizabeth Siddall, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, William Morris, and many other inspirational figures.
According to the Nevada Museum of Art, the Victorian Radicals collection is the largest ever touring exhibition for Birmingham Museums Trust.
“This is an exciting opportunity for Birmingham, helping to raise the profile of both the city and its collection internationally,” said Tom Watley, Director of Collections at Birmingham Museums Trust. Since October 2018, the exhibition has visited New Haven, Massachusetts, Oklahoma City, Vero Beach, Florida, San Antonio, and Seattle. The Nevada Museum of Art showing is the final opportunity to see this unparalleled art exhibit in Reno before it leaves the west coast. Now’s your chance to explore the visual arts that laid the groundwork for centuries to come.
The Nevada Museum of Art will offer to host several public programs on Zoom in connection with Victorian Radicals:
Turning Pages: A Monthly Reading Group
Escape into the era of Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement through a virtual monthly reading group. Each novel is composed of two meetings:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- 6 p.m., Tuesday, March 9, and Tuesday, February 9
- $10 or free for members
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë follows the story of a young heroine on her journey to adulthood. Many consider it to be ahead of its time as it questions important topics of class, feminism, religion, and sexuality. Through a first-person narrative, the novel revolutionized thought around collective consciousness.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
- 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 13, and Tuesday, March 11
- $10 or free for Members
First published in 1854, North and South highlights complex labor relations during the early industrialization period in England. As one of Gaskell’s best-selling novels, it follows the love story of amiddle-class southerner forced to move to the northern town of Milton.
Dystopia to Utopia: How Radical Victorians Transformed the Industrial World
- 4 p.m., Thursday, March 11
- $10 or free for members
Learn why the Victorian Radicals gained followers across the globe from Dr. Tim Barringer, a Paul Mellon professor and chair of the History of Art at Yale University. He will explain the development of the socialist and ecological critique of capitalism in Victorian Britain, which produced some of the most spectacular artworks of the industrial era.
Living with the Industrial Revolution
- 4 p.m., Thursday, March 25
- $10 or free for members
Professor Dennis Dworkin of the University of Nevada, Reno, will explore the working-class, conservative, and liberal responses to a changing social landscape during the Industrial Revolution. Professor Dworkin is an intellectual historian of Britain, Ireland, and Europe specializing in cultural theory and global studies.
Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang: Fifty Makers, Shakers, and Heartbreakers from the Victorian Era
- Noon, Friday, April 2
- $10 or free for members
Art historian and author Kirsty Stonell Walker will explore the colorful histories of women of the Victorian era in her book, Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang. She introduces an enchanting and revolutionary band of women—artists, sculptors, inventors, models, wives, sisters, and muses—who continue to inspire groundbreakers and troublemakers today.
Women and the Arts and Crafts Movement: “What Can a Woman Do?”
- 4 p.m., Thursday, April 22
- $10 or free for members
What was the role of women designers and artists in the Arts and Crafts movement? Wendy Kaplan, LACMA Department Head and Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, explores Victorian women’s leadership in social and economic reform as well as restrictions they encountered that prevented their full participation.
Victorian Radicals and the Cult of Beauty
- 4 p.m., Thursday, May 13
- $10 or free for members
Melissa Leventon, the co-founder of Curatrix Group and former Curator-in-Charge of Textiles at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, is a specialist in European and American costume and textiles. She will take audiences on a journey into the British Aesthetic Movement’s unconventional creativity, a revolution in fashion and decorative arts.
Take a piece of this art exhibit in Reno home
Throughout the duration of the art exhibit in Reno, the Museum Shop will offer a Victorian Radicals catalog featuring rarely seen works, provocative essays, and a striking, period-inspired design.
Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Art & Crafts Movement is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with additional funding provided by Clare McKeon and the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation. Additional sponsorship for Victorian Radicals is provided by Wayne and Rachelle Prim, The Six Talents Foundation, Carole K. Anderson, Sponsors, Barbara and Tad Danz, Nancy and Brian Kennedy, Jenny and Garrett Sutton, Debbie Day, Haynie & Company, Pat and Marshall Postman, Kathie Bartlett.
