THE ART OF THE NUDE |

ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM 

THE ART OF THE NUDE

ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM 

THE ART OF THE NUDE explores the artistic genre of the nude and provides a public airing of rarely seen works belonging to the  permanent collections of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery. 

• 6 Aug & 13 Sept 2008 | Gallery Talks | Join Guest Curator John Wilson for a guided tour of the exhibition THE ART OF THE NUDE at Newport Museum and Art Gallery – admission free. | Wednesday 6 August 2008 at 2 PM | Saturday 13 September 2008 at 11.30 AM

NEWS

THE ART OF THE NUDE exhibition and the Sir Gerald Festus Kelly "Newport Nude" controversy proved newsworthy with features in the UK daily press followed by global exposure on the Web.

22 - 23  July 2008: "Banned brazen nude"

  Daily Mirror | Daily Mail | Daily Telegraph

Selected news items. | For a full listing see the news archive THE ART OF THE NUDE   

• metrolife.co.uk | Bodies beautiful at The Art Of The Nude | by DAVID TRIGG | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | This exhibition, curated by John Wilson and Roger Cucksey, presents some of the very best nudes from Newport Art Gallery's collection. | (...) Nudes have generated their fair share of controversy over the years. The bronze version of Rodin's The Kiss, presented here, was once considered unsuitable for general display in America. Newport's gallery itself came under fire in 1947 when the purchase and public display of Sir Gerald Festus Kelly's Nude Study was described as 'an affront' by the Bishop Of Caerleon. The subsequent press coverage resulted in hordes of people flocking to see the work. | It's unlikely this exhibition will attract similar criticism, though the high calibre of work on display should certainly draw the crowds.

• The Times | Banned nude still scandalises | July 23, 2008 
• BBC Radio Wales | Good Evening Wales: The Newport Nude (opens video clip) | 22 July 2008, 16h00 - 18h30 | The controversy surrounding the so-called "Newport Nude" painting by Sir Gerald Festus Kelly was featured on the BBC Radio Wales news programme "Good Evening Wales" on 22 July 2008 | Interview with Guest Curators John Wilson and Roger Cucksey, probing behind the sensationalist headlines courted by the daily press.
  

• 22 - 23 July 2008: "Banned brazen nude": 

Sensationalist headlines appeared in Daily Mirror , Daily Mail , Daily Telegraph, BBC News , Evening Standard , The Times | See details in news archive here

• 22 July 2008 - 61 years after the "Newport Nude" controversy was featured in the Daily Mirror of 1947, Sir Gerald Festus Kelly's feisty nude painting hit the headlines once again | Daily Mirror | 'Too rude' nude is exposed 60yrs on ( hard copy here ).

• Friday 18th July | Exhibition Opening | Members of the public are warmly invited to attend the Exhibition Opening at Newport Museum and Art Gallery at 7.00pm, admission free. | View a video clip of the exhibition opening here.

• South Wales Argus, 15 July 2008 | Newport nude can go on view again

"A saucy nude who scandalised Newport in the 1940s is once again being exposed to the public gaze. | Clothed and unclothed and ranging from the strictly representational through to the abstract the exhibition shows off one of the finest art collections in Wales".

• 31 March 2008 | View a video clip of the exhibition selection process here 

News

 THE ART OF THE NUDE

theme - online gallery - resources

acknowledgements

Exhibition Theme | Framing the Nude

• THE ART OF THE NUDE: ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM is an exhibition produced by Guest Curators John Wilson and Roger Cucksey for Newport Museum and Art Gallery.
  

• THE ART OF THE NUDE is the third project in the Explorations Series , which provides a frame to explore the  diverse range of artists, genre and art historical periods represented in the Newport Museum and Art Gallery collections. 
• Curatorial projects exploring the Newport Museum and Art Gallery collections are recorded in the Art in Newport archive.

THE ART OF THE NUDE frames the artistic genre of the nude and provides a fascinating thread through the history of art. The study of the nude formed the basis of the post-Renaissance academic tradition of "Western Art", whilst the departures of modernism and the avant garde likewise saw a persistence of the nude as a vital genre for the artist's exploration. Whither the nude in today's world of CGI and the Internet? 

A review of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery collections highlights the nude as a lively artistic genre which provides a fascinating thread through the history of art. We may draw particular attention the following significant works in the Newport collections which formed a point of departure for our enquiry into the genre of the nude and the history of art and art education:

• Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924) - Painted by a leading Society portraitist and later President of the Royal Academy, this bold representation of the female nude became a cause celebre when it was purchased from the Royal Academy Summer Show and displayed at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery in 1947. | Read more: THE NUDE | Case study: Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924)
  
• Thomas Rathmell, The Picture Wall (1977) - Through the 1960's & '70's Newport College of Art enjoyed an enviable British reputation, wth Thomas Rathmell at the helm as Head of the School of Painting and an academic rigour centred in the life-room that fed a stream of students to the Royal College of Art.
• Harry Holland, Diane and Actæon (1984) - "This extraordinary classical artist (...) is widely regarded as one of Britain's best craftsmen, producing technically brilliant and very beautiful paintings" (x): internationally renowned for his imaginative exploration of the human figure, Harry Holland is represented by several works in the Newport Museum and Art Gallery collections (- with the following works also included in this exhibition: x, x, x, x - ) and we are espescially pleased that this Cardiff-based based artist was able to accept our invite to open THE ART OF THE NUDE exhibition at Newport Museum and Art Gallery on 18 July 2008.

View the exhibition as slideshow

Our selection brings together a diverse body of  works with a lively conception of the subject of the nude. The large-scale exhibition of 85 works -  28 drawings, 12 prints, 39 paintings and 6 works of sculpture - includes the following prominent artists: Auguste Rodin, Henry Gaudier-Brzeska, William Blake, Sir Edward J. Poynter, Sir Gerald Kelly, Sir William Russell Flint R.A, Peter Blake, Allen Jones, Sir William Goscombe John R.A. , Ceri Richards, Merlyn Evans, Thomas Rathmell, Harry Holland, Angelica Kauffman R.A, Dame Laura Knight R.A. , Elinor Bellingham-Smith and Gerda Roper.
 

We may reflect upon:

• the central place of the nude in the history of art

• the nude as a highly productive genre for the artist's exploration

• the sometimes controversial role of the nude as a mediator of aesthetic taste and cultural mores across the generations
  
  

   

 Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924)

• John Wilson, The Art of the Nude: Curatorial Reflection

• THE NUDE | Case study: Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924)
  

• Links - the nude in art history and culture
  

We gratefully acknowledge the help of colleagues at Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Robin Hawkins and Sarah Griffiths, for assistance in the exhibition hanging and catalogue preparation.

We are especially pleased that painter Harry Holland was able to  accept our invite to open THE ART OF THE NUDE exhibition at Newport Museum and Art Gallery on 18 July 2008.

Guest Curators

John Wilson & Roger Cucksey

Newport Museum & Art Gallery

18 July 2008