THE POETRY OF DRAWING at Birmingham Art Gallery

It is definitely going to be a very big year for Pre-Raphaelite art in 2011.  Since hearing of the Exhibitions at the V & A and at Two Temple Place in London I have now discovered that there is going to be an exhibition on the Poetry of Drawing - Pre-Raphaelite Designs, Studies and Watercolours at the Birmingham Museum starting on January 29th.

Pictured above is a previously unseen drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  The model is clearly Jane Burden, wife of William Morris (the main character from our musical POSSESSED) and the Watercolour is entitled Mnemosyne.  It was painted is 1876 and has remained in a private collection since the death of Rossetti.  The watercolour is a study for the oil he painted, called Mnemosyne or The Lamp of Memory, which is now held at the Delaware Art Museum.  I saw the painting in Delaware on my trip to the States in 2008.