Sir Joshua Reynolds: President of the Royal Academy


Small exhibition at Tate Britain focusing pictures painted by Joshua Reynolds in the period he was president of the Royal Academy.

The commentary of the show was giving the historical context of each picture and talking about how he used experimental techniques which often didn’t work or deteriorated quickly. It also talked about his intellectual circle, the Streatham Group, many of whom he painted. It also pointed out that the political background to work was the French Revolution.

There was a feature made of the portrait of Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, which the gallery had bought recently. I liked the detail that they’d found out the dog he was painted with was called Rover and had died in Paris. It was painted in 1769 but was not delivered until 1775 and sent back as it had been damaged and Reynolds had to repair a tear.

Closes on 14 July 2019


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