National Galleries of Scotland
Permanent Collection Display
Permanent Collection Display
A new display of work by William Blake (1757-1827), one of the most
gifted and influential of all Romantic artists, will open at the
National Gallery Complex next month to commemorate the 250th
anniversary of his birth.
Using the Gallery’s entire collection of Blake material, which has
never previously been displayed together, the display will provide a
stimulating introduction to the artist’s achievements, chiefly as a
printmaker and watercolour painter, and illustrate how his works
evoke a private world of religious, mythic and philosophical themes
of searing originality.
Among the highlights in the display will be Blake’s outstanding
watercolour depicting God Writing upon the Tables of the Covenant
(1805), and prints he designed for Blair’s The Grave (1813) and made
for The Book of Job (1825).
The display will also feature a group of facsimile relief-etched
copper plates and impressions, created by the Blake scholar and
printmaker Michael Phillips (see Special Event), to illustrate the
artist’s method of Illuminated Printing.
Michael Phillips will also take part in a special event with Tracy
Chevalier, best-selling author of Girl with the Pearl Earring, who
will read from her new novel Burning Bright. The novel draws upon
research by Michael Phillips, guest curator of the recent William
Blake exhibition at the Tate. Readings from the novel will be
interspersed with a discussion between the two writers. William
Blake in Lambeth and the Making of Burning Bright will take place on
Friday 17 August at the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre within the
National Gallery Complex on the Mound.
National Galleries of Scotland
70 Belford Road - Edinburgh