Tate Britain presents major art exhibition showcasing the Rossetti generation
In April, Tate Britain will present a major exhibition charting the romance and radicalism of the Rossetti generation – Dante Gabriel, Christina and Elizabeth – showcasing their revolutionary approach to life, love and art.
Moving through and beyond the Pre-Raphaelite years, the exhibition will feature 150 paintings and drawings as well as photography, design, poetry and more.
This will be the first retrospective of Dante Gabriel Rossetti at Tate and the largest exhibition of his pictures in two decades.
It will also be the first full retrospective of Elizabeth Siddal for 30 years, featuring her rare watercolours and important drawings.
Christina and Dante Gabriel’s poetry will be interwoven with the artworks through spoken word and beautifully illustrated editions of their work.
The Rossettis led a progressive counterculture, blending past and present to reinvent art and life for a fast-changing modern world.
The children of an Italian revolutionary exile, they grew up in London in a scholarly family and they began their artistic careers as teenagers.
The exhibition will begin with a celebration of their young talent, opening with Dante Gabriel’s Ecce Ancilla Domine in 1850, the stark and evocative painting for which his sister Christina and brother William Michael posed.
This will be shown with an immersive installation of Christina’s poetry, as well as examples of Dante Gabriel’s teenage drawings, reflecting his precocious skill and his enthusiasm for original voices like William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe.
Works from the Pre-Raphaelite years will demonstrate how the spirit of popular revolution inspired these artists to initiate the first British avant-garde movement, rebelling against the Royal Academy’s dominance over artistic style and content.
More personal forms of revolution will be explored through the Rossettis’ refusal to abide by the constraints of Victorian society.
The exhibition will conclude by showing how the Rossettis inspired the next generation, including William Michael’s children who started the anarchist magazine The Torch, and how they continue to influence radical art and culture to this day.
Picture: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine, 1874. Picture: Tate