Future exhibitions

The Truth About Faeries:

From Midsummers Night's Dream to Lord of the Rings

22 June - 13 September, 2009

Since the 1970s the revival of interest in Victorian and Edwardian fairy painting and illustration has undoubtedly been a catalyst for contemporary artists. The exhibition to bring the the faeries' story up to date, with contemporary fairy and fantasy painters and illustrators. The works of Brian Froud, who was born in nearby Winchester, his wife Wendy Froud, Alan Lee, and Patrick Woodroffe, who now all live in ‘fairytale’ Cornwall, will form the core of the modern section.

Brian Froud is best known for a series of illustrated fairy books, which have been adapted into several successful motion pictures including The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Alan Lee was awarded an Oscar for his work on Lord of the Rings. The Art of Faery (2003) by David Riche and mentored by Froud, contributed to the careers of twenty fairy artists of this revival movement, including Amy Brown, Myrea Pettit, Jasmine Becket-Griffith, James Browne, and Jessica Galbreth, many of whom went on to author individual art books. Depictions of fairies have made their way into the popular culture in other ways as well, including clothing designs, ceramics, figurines, needlecraft, figurative art, and quilting, many marketed to a global market online. Fairs and science fiction conventionas have also developed modern fairy art as a collectable genre.

Victorian and Edwardian illustrators, especially Doyle, Rackham and Dulac, have clearly inspired Froud and Lee. But rather than attempting a chronological or artist driven display, this exhibition will take a thematic approach, looking at the ways in which artists have responded to Shakespeare’s faeries (A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Tempest); Spencer’s Faire Queen; Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. The Flower Fairies of Cicely Mary Barker and Margaret Tarrant form a theme in their own right. There will be bad faeries (goblins), as well as good faeries and even fake fairies (the Cottingley Fairies and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). This exhibition hopes to chart a living tradition, taking as its starting point the ‘golden age’ of illustration, from the 1860s to the 1930s, culminating with the revival of fairy art in the 1970s, which will bring the story up to the present day. Southampton City Art Gallery hopes to draw on public (V&A, Heath Robinson Trust and Cecil Higgins Art Gallery) and private collections to create an exhibition that will appeal to a wide audience. Wendy Froud’s work is largely sculptural, adding a new dynamic to the show; it is also hoped to include costumes.

Image credit: Tinkerbell, watercolour by Brian Froud, copyright the artist 2009