We are delighted to announce that the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Manton Centre for British Art at the Courtauld are working together on a three-year programme of research, events and collaboration generating new ideas and understandings around the histories, meanings and legacy of English landscape painting, 1770-1830.
Comprising seminars, lectures and workshops organised at the Manton Centre, and a national programme of curatorial research and programming funded by the Paul Mellon Centre in partnership with Ipswich Museums, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, and Turner Contemporary, Margate, ‘Generation Landscape’ will offer expansive new ways of thinking about English landscape painting now, freshly informed by questions of regionality, nationhood and identity, eco-critical perspectives, and the creative potential of imaginative and literary methodologies for reshaping art history.
With the completion of the online catalogue of the Turner Bequest at Tate, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre and launched with a major international conference, Turner 250 at Tate, this is a watershed moment for the study and understanding of the contribution of English landscape painting within the wider contexts of European and world culture. ‘Generation Landscape’ will bring art historians, curators, academic researchers and creative voices together to think afresh about this significant moment in art history, when a generation of emerging artists created paintings and graphic works offering bold and often experimental new visions of nature, the landscape and the purpose of art itself – and why these images continue to carry such imaginative force today.
Sarah Turner, Director of the Paul Mellon Centre, said “Collaborating to support a vibrant infrastructure of research is at the heart of the PMC’s approach. Through our funding, we are really delighted to bring together the convening potential and academic expertise offered by the Courtauld’s new Manton Centre with our partners at museums and galleries in Ipswich, Bristol and Margate. This partnership is going to build on the foundations of the extraordinary body of scholarship that already exists on artists such as Turner and Constable and support a new generation of curators, researchers and artists to engage with it and shape different and original responses for audiences today. “
Steve Edwards, Director of the Manton Centre at the Courtauld, said “Sir Edwin Manton built an art collection centred around the important generation of English landscape painters: Constable, Gainsborough, Girtin, Turner, and others. Collaboration between the Manton Centre and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, establishes a dialogue with the artists at the heart of his interests to consider the meanings and values that have shaped Britain. Generation Landscape will support and promote new scholarship and curatorial work concerned with landscape and nature, providing an exciting opportunity to place contemporary research in conversation with a moment when both British art and British society were undergoing profound change.â€
‘Generation Landscape’ is a three-year programme of research and events organised by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Manton Centre at The Courtauld. For more about the programme, and for information about previous events on the theme, see .
