A Pre-Raphaelite Journey: The Art of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: National Museums Liverpool

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale was an accomplished painter, illustrator, and designer during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But despite her huge popularity during her lifetime, her work has been neglected since her death in 1945. In A Pre-Raphaelite Journey, art historian and theorist Pamela Gerrish Nunn sets out to reestablish Fortescue-Brickdale as the important and fascinating figure in Western art that she was, offering the first dedicated book on her art and life in a biography peppered with fifty stunning color plates.

 

Living and working during the tremendous cultural changes in Britain and Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, Fortescue- Brickdale represents a powerful bridge between the Victorian and modern worlds. She was heavily influenced by the pre-Raphaelite artists, whose love of detail, color, symbolism, and nature set a hallmark aesthetic for Victorian British culture. Indeed, she became known as “the last pre-Raphaelite,” particularly as an artist who drew from major literary figures, from Shakespeare to Tennyson, retelling their stories through her paintings and illustrations.

 

Employing extensive research and the knowledge acquired over a long career studying Victorian art, Nunn takes readers and viewers on a journey through Fortescue-Brickdale’s development—her training, career, and the achievements that should leave a lasting mark on art history.