Painted Dreams At Wolverhampton Art Gallery

I must admit I have caught this wonderful exhibition very late on. It ends this weekend, fittingly on the occasion of International Women’s Day. Painted Dreams, the art of Evelyn De Morgan, is a re-visitation, and a re-imagining, of an exhibition that was first held at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 1907. This was a unique, and important exhibition. It was incredibly rare for a modern gallery to dedicate a show to a solo female artist in Edwardian times.

Featuring thirty artworks, Painted Dreams reveals De Morgan’s progression as an artist and her technical mastery as one of the most impressive artists of the late Victorian era. Discover De Morgan’s exploration of challenging subjects and painterly responses to enduring social and political issues of the day, such as feminism, inequality, war and pacifism.

The paintings of Evelyn De Morgan are absolutely stunning. There is a bright, vibrant use of primary colours that literally catch your eye the minute you view them, they are just so rich is colour and detail. They are most usually associated with the late Pre-Raphaelite era, and even feature models who were so famous during this period. An example is Jane Morris, who is the model for both The Hourglass (modelled when she was 65), and also Study for the head of Jane Morris in old age.

Many of the themes that were popular in Pre-Raphaelite paintings and art are represented in Evelyn’s work. Religious themes, figures from ancient Greek mythology and history, like Helen of Troy and Cassandra, from Arthurian legends ( Morgan Le Fay), even from the story of the Little Mermaid and from tales by Goethe of Faust. There are also paintings that show that Botticelli, and in particularly, his ‘Birth of Venus’ were a huge early influence of Evelyn, whose work always delighted in beauty, even when telling the most tragic of stories and legends.

What strikes you when you look at the Painted Dreams exhibition is how many of the paintings are dedicated to studies of women and of women’s stories. I think this was probably born of frustration of the life of women at a time when women’s suffrage was just coming to the core. As the Wolverhampton Art Gallery point out:-

By recreating De Morgan’s 1907 solo show as faithfully as possible, Painted Dreams highlights a career that has been historically overshadowed by her male contemporaries.

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