NEW HAVEN, CONN.- The Yale Center for British Art presents its eighth annual exhibition curated by Yale undergraduates in the Center’s Student Guide Program. Art in Focus: Wales features works from the Center’s collection that depict the Welsh landscape and explore its significance to the history of landscape in British art. Students selected from oil paintings, finished watercolors, plein-air sketches, prints, and drawings by a range of artists, including Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, Thomas Rowlandson, James Ward, J. M. W. Turner, David Cox, Thomas Girtin, John Martin, John Linnell, William Blake, and Samuel Palmer. Also on display are published guidebooks and travel diaries. The exhibition complements the Center’s exhibition on Richard Wilson.
The aesthetic “discovery” of Welsh landscape began in 1737, when Thomas Herring, Bishop of Bangor, made what has been called the first literary tour of Snowdonia, in North Wales, and recounted the experience in his Letters (London, 1777), particularly noting the wild and mountainous scenery. Until then, Wales had been considered remote and inaccessible to English travelers. In the 1750s, a growing interest in the remnants of ancient Britain led antiquarians to Wales in search of ruins. Later in the eighteenth century, particularly during periods when war with European powers restricted travel to the Continent, the mountains of North Wales offered experiences of the sublime to rival those of the Alps. By the early nineteenth century, the region had become part of the standard itinerary of British landscape artists.
The exhibition is curated by Emily Feldstein (PC ’16), Kathryn Kaelin (SY ’15), Olga Karnas (SM ’16), Rebecca Levinsky (MC ’15), Anna Meixler (ES ’16), Danny Roza (SM ’15), Katharine Spooner (TD ’16), and Lynnli Wang (TD ’15), working under the guidance of Center staff, including Eleanor Hughes, Associate Director of Exhibitions and Publications, and Associate Curator; Linda Friedlaender, Curator of Education; and Jamie Ursic, Assistant Curator of Education. The project is accompanied by a fully-illustrated brochure, authored by the students.
The Center’s Student Guide program offers Yale undergraduates from all disciplines the opportunity to work closely with works of art and museum staff. Launched in 2007, the annual Art in Focus exhibition is a curatorial initiative for members of the program that introduces the guides to every aspect of exhibition practice, culminating in a spring show in the Center’s galleries. Under the supervision of Center staff, student curators select objects for the exhibition, write text panels and object labels, and make decisions about installation.
Student Guides meet weekly to learn about the Center’s collections, special exhibitions, and operations. They create tours on topics of their choosing, which are open to all visitors. Student Guide tours take place on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm throughout the academic year.
