William Powell Frith: The People’s Painter. A Bicentenary Exhibition

A major exhibition of the works of William Powell Frith (1819-1909), whose great panoramas of Victorian life made him the most popular painter of his time, will be mounted at Harrogate’s Mercer Art Gallery from June 15 to September 29.

Marking the bicentenary of Frith’s birth, this exhibition draws together over 70 paintings and prints from major national collections, including Tate Britain, the Royal Academy, HM The Queen, the V&A and the Mercer Art Gallery’s own collection.

There will also be many previously unseen works of art loaned from private collections and descendants of the artist. The Private View (at the Royal Academy) (featured above) which was recently sold on the open market for the sum of £12M will also feature as part of the exhibition.

Moving to London in 1835 to become a student at the Royal Academy, Frith quickly became one of the great masters of the Victorian era, painting multi-layered panoramas that highlighted the social tensions and complexities of the times. Frith’s major paintings – Ramsgate Sands (1851-54), The Derby Day (1856-58), The Railway Station (1862) and The Private View (1881) – were so popular that the Royal Academy had to protect them from crowds with a rail on six occasions. These works toured the UK – including Frith’s home town of Harrogate – and overseas, drawing huge crowds who queued up and paid to see them. Frith also became one of the most commercially successful painters of the era, as the mass produced engravings of his masterpieces transported his art work to the parlours of the world and catapulted him to fame.

Jane Sellars MBE, curator of arts projects at the Mercer Art Gallery and co-author with art historian, Richard Green of William Powell Frith: The People’s Painter, said: “This bicentenary celebration of the work of William Powell Frith is very significant, as it draws together the most comprehensive collection of his work in the town of his birth, surrounded by the rich backdrop of the landscapes and influences of his early life.”

Frith was a skilled narrator and innovator, filling his pictures with a multitude of contemporary characters representing the various levels of Victorian society – a connection to his audiences which has inspired Jane Sellars to commission acclaimed northern photographer, Jonathan Turner to reinterpret four of Frith’s most well known paintings in a modern context.

Jane added: “Jonathan was the perfect person to re-imagine the work of Frith. He has a skill in capturing ordinary people going about their extraordinary business. The ordinary people of Frith’s day loved to spot the celebrities and society figures, but what really attracted them to his work was seeing people like themselves depicted in art for the very first time.

“Incorporating nearly 150 people from the Harrogate and Ripon communities – including Duncan Grant and Christine Talbot from ITV – Jonathan has created some stunning complementary images which will sit alongside the originals in the exhibition, highlighting some of the similarities and key differences between the two times.”

William Powell Frith: The People’s Painter – Bicentenary Exhibition includes all of Frith’s great masterpieces; his depiction of the overcrowded beach at Ramsgate, in Life at the Seaside (on loan from HM The Queen), the bustle of Paddington Station in The Railway Station (on loan from the Royal Holloway College, London) and The Derby Day, from Tate Britain.

For further information please visit www.harrogate.gov.uk/museums
William Powell Frith, The People’s Painter has been made possible thanks to the generous support from the Friends of the Mercer Art Gallery, The Arts Council England, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers. The Mercer Art Gallery is a public gallery and free for everyone to enjoy.