Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 26, 2005|Volume 34, Number 1

Francis Wheatley's oil painting "The Oliver and Ward Families" is among the works on view in the exhibit highlighting the artist's career.

Exhibit explores the 18th-century
'worlds' of Francis Wheatley

The career of 18th-century artist Francis Wheatley -- who inhabited myriad artistic and social worlds and whose subjects ranged from wealthy London families to Irish peasants -- will be explored in a new exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art opening on Wednesday, Aug. 31.

"The Worlds of Francis Wheatley" is the first U.S. exhibition of the artist's work. It features 59 pieces drawn from the center's collection of paintings, prints and rare books. In addition to Wheatley's oil paintings and watercolors, the exhibit also features reproductive prints and explores the status of paintings and prints in the 18th century.

During his career, Wheatley (1747-1801) lived in Georgian London and rural Ireland, and associated with wealthy clients and individuals from the marginal world of the theater, as well as from the Royal Academy of Arts and the print shop. His artistic output was equally broad, encompassing printmaking, portraiture, genre painting and history painting.

Contemporary commentary reveals that Wheatley was a mercurial individual, assumed to be a gambler and noted for being a dandy. In 1779, after being elected to the prestigious Royal Academy, the artist fled London with another man's wife, living in Dublin for several years in a sham marriage. An acquaintance noted that, after becoming addicted to the high life of Georgian London, Wheatley found it difficult to "live in accordance with his means."

The artist is best known to visitors to the Yale Center for British Art for his group portraits, or "conversation pieces," particularly "The Oliver and Ward Families" and "The Browne Family." The first section of the exhibit explores these works, looking in particular at how Wheatley responded to his clients' desires by portraying middle-class merchants and bankers in the trappings of country gentlemen.

Wheatley's career in Ireland is the focus of the second part of the exhibition. During this period of artistic freedom, Wheatley moved beyond studio portraiture to sketch and paint watercolors outdoors. He focused his attention on the peasants and rural poor living outside of Dublin, in the process gathering material that would serve him for the rest of his career.

Returning to London in 1783, the artist immersed himself in the late Georgian art world. He began to create paintings for the reproductive print market and consequently expanded his subject matter to include contemporary events and historical and literary scenes. The peasant figures from his Irish sketches were reformulated to serve the artist's burgeoning career as a painter of sentimental rustic genre scenes. Tinged with morality and eroticism in equal measure, these works were very popular with the print-buying public. Wheatley's greatest success on the print market was his series "The Cries of London." The exhibition ends with a comprehensive display of these works.

"The Worlds of Francis Wheatley" was organized by Angus Trumble, curator of paintings and sculpture, and Cassandra Albinson, assistant curator of paintings and sculpture. The exhibit is part of an ongoing initiative to showcase the holdings of an individual artist's work in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art. The show -- on view through Dec. 31 -- is organized to complement "Sensation and Sensibility: Viewing Gainsborough's 'Cottage Door'" (opening on Oct. 6 at the center), which will feature Wheatley paintings from private collections.

The Yale Center for British Art, located at 1080 Chapel St., is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (on Thursdays until 7 p.m. Sept. 7-Nov. 16), and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Admission is free. Docent-led tours of exhibitions are offered on Thursdays at 11 a.m. and Saturdays at noon. For further information, visit the center's website: www.yale.edu/ycba.

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