Ever Present Help: Ruskin’s Artists
5 October – 11 December 2015
A comprehensive display of the work of Victorian artists, famous and obscure, who assisted John Ruskin at different times throughout his life.
“I have been up and along the ridge of the Salève right to its southern brow to-day. There is no giving you any conception of the loveliness of its golden mossy turf […] nor of the glades of grass fresh with frosty dew, under ranks of Spanish chestnut and pine.”
John Ruskin, writing to his father, 25 October 1862
This colourful display, drawn entirely from the Museum’s Whitehouse Collection, focused on the artists who knew Ruskin well and could be relied on for assistance when required. They range from John Everett Millais, who worked on diagrams for Ruskin’s earliest lectures in 1853, to J.W. Bunney, Edward Burne-Jones, William Ward, T.M. Rooke, Arthur Severn (husband of his Ruskin’s cousin, Joan) and W.G. Collingwood. A number of female artists were also represented, including Mary Byfield, Kate Goodwin, Isabella Jay and Kate Greenaway.
