Victorian Artists in Photographs:
G F Watts and his World
Selections from The Rob Dickins Collection

14 September - 31 December 2007 - Watts Gallery
7 January - 13 April 2008 - Guildhall Art Gallery, London
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26 April - 13 July 2007 - The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
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7 November 2008 - 3 January 2009 - Forbes Gallery, Fifth Avenue, NY
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This is a touring exhibition from the Rob Dickins Collection at Watts Gallery, initiated and organised by Watts Gallery.

Alfred Tennyson



Charles Dickens

Ellen Terry



The Misses Dene

"Fascinating Stuff"
Frank Whitford, Critical List, Sunday Times
"Haunting photographs"
Robert Simon, Daily Mail

A remarkable exhibition of photographs of the Victorian art world, many exhibited for the first time. These include images of the leading artists of the day and their studios, including Edward Burne-Jones, George Cruickshank, William Holman Hunt, Frederic Lord Leighton, John Everett Millais, William Morris and Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, but also the artists’ models, wives and families. It also includes rare images of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the principal cultural figures of the day such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens and John Ruskin. The exhibition promises to bring GF Watts’s world and artistic circle to life.

Photography brings us a step closer to a distant age and offers us the opportunity to see the faces, homes and families of artists whose work are so popular.

In an age that is so fascinated with celebrities, we should easily understand the Victorian interest in their own celebrities. The eagerness to see images of our heroes and heroines, to find information about their homes and lifestyle, was shared by our counterparts in the nineteenth century. At a time when art reached a wide audience and was supremely popular, artists were seen as celebrities and the photographs in the exhibition grew from that passion.

The exhibition is selected from the gift of some 4500 Victorian photographs given by Rob Dickins CBE to Watts Gallery. Dickins is a Trustee of the Watts Gallery and the V&A but is best known as the Chairman of Warner Music UK from 1983-98 where he signed The Sex Pistols, Madness, Simply Red, Enya and Cher. Dickins says of the Victorian artists captured in his collection:

“…with their interest in sex, drugs and art, I think their lives were very rock’n’roll.”

The exhibition will be divided into themes covering:

Royalty and Politicians: including Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Gladstone, Disraeli

Influential Thinkers: including Ruskin, Carlyle, Darwin, J S Mill

Literary Greats: including Tennyson, Dickens, George Elliot, Wilkie Collins

Artists: including Leighton, E J Poynter, Lady Butler, the Alma Tademas

G. F. Watts and his Circle: including Tennyson, Prinseps

The Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic Movement: including Holman Hunt, Rossetti, Burne-Jones

Artists at Home in the Studio: Leighton, Val Prinsep, Philip Morris

Artists’ Dress and Costume: including Henry Holiday, Dalziel dressed up

The Artist’s Muse: including Fanny Cornforth, Phoebe ‘Effie’ Cookson, Edith Holman Hunt and Margaret Burne-Jones

Satellites of the Art World: including John Tenniel, Phil May, George Cruikshank

A fully illustrated catalogue for the exhibtion is available from the shop priced £12.50 (special exhibition price). It is also available to order online. Click here to visit the shop