From Arthur Devis to Walter Sickert paintings from collections across the UK and America will be shown as social-historical documents containing revealing details about the nature of domestic spaces and the objects that furnished them.
Exterior and interior furnishings and decorative art, as well as documentary sources in the form of inventories, diaries and letters, trade catalogues, pattern books and planting plans will be used alongside the canvases.
And – in-keeping with a museum set in the former almshouses of the Ironmongers’ Company that focuses upon English urban middle-class living from 1600 to the present day – the spotlight will be on the valued domestic spaces of the middle-classes rather than those of Royalty or the aristocracy.
Study days are planned to accompany the exhibition during which historians and writers from a range of disciplines will explore ideas raised by the images. Subjects covered in Part One will include the role and uses of the conversation piece in 18th-century paintings and the use of props in portraiture.
For more information contact 020 7739 9893 or www.geffrye-museum.org.uk
Home is where the art is at Geffrye Museum
Home and Garden: Domestic Spac is the title of a two-part exhibition opening at the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, East London from September 16. This exhibition brings together 80 paintings in two groups (Part One: 1730-1830, from September 16 to January 18 2004 and Part Two: 1830-1914, from March 9 to July 18 2004) to explore the representation of urban domestic interiors and gardens in paintings over two and a half centuries.
