William Blake’s painting, A Vision of the Last Judgment. Photograph: William Blake/National Trust
This Blake Exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view one of my favourite Artworks produced by a True Master. I have always had a special affinity to Blake sharing his birthdate. BWH
Rare William Blake works to be exhibited in Sussex, where he lived
Exhibition includes loans from the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam, the V&A, and includes rare surviving copies of his books
A painting by William Blake which spent decades in a dark corner of the library at Petworth House in Sussex is about to go on display as one of the treasures of the house, a key work from the poet and artist’s three years in the area, the only place he ever lived outside London.
The exhibition includes loans from the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam, the Victoria and Albert Museum and other collections of paintings, drawings, letters, and rare surviving copies of books which Blake intended as money making ventures. As ever in his life, these turned into financial disasters.
Detail from William Blake’s painting, The Sea of Time and Space (Vision of the Circle of the Life of Man), which will be shown at the exhibition of the artist’s works, opening to the public on Saturday at Petworth House in Sussex.
Photograph: National Trust Images/John Hammond/John Hammond
He is now revered as one of the greatest figures in literary and artistic history but was a shabby and eccentric figure during his Sussex years. In a portrait by Thomas Phillips, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, the artist had to lend Blake good clothes, and could only persuade him to sit still by getting him to tell the story of how he was introduced to Milton by Michaelangelo and the Angel Gabriel.
Andy Loukes, curator of the exhibition which opens to the public on Saturday, believes Blake must have come to Petworth when he was living with his wife Catherine in a tiny cottage in Felpham near Bognor Regis – now being restored by the Blake Cottage Trust – but such a humble figure was not recorded among the famous visitors.
DETAIL – William Blake’s painting, A Vision of the Last Judgment. Photograph: William Blake/National Trust
see full article here : The Guardian
see link for exhibition : Visions of Albion – Blake @ Pentworth
