Hoppner, Beechey, Fisher, Lavery: Researching Columbia’s Portraits.

February 11 – May 10, 2019
Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Wallach Study Center for Art & Architecture, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library

John Hoppner, Portrait of Isabella Ricketts, later Mrs. Stanlake Henry Batson (1782-1845), ca. 1800-01, oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 30 in. (100.2 x 76.2 cm), Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Gift of Loyd H. Langston (C00.762).

Now on view in Avery Library is the exhibition Hoppner, Beechey, Fisher, Lavery: Researching Columbia’s Portraits, curated by Roberto C. Ferrari, Curator of Art Properties, with Mateusz Mayer, Ph.D. student, Department of Art History & Archaeology. This focused exhibition showcases four rarely-seen historical British portraits from the University art collection, painted by these artists between the years 1800 and 1927. The show highlights new discoveries made about each painting, ranging from biography to provenance to political propaganda, but also proposes to question what “British” means both historically and in the age of Brexit.

The Columbia University art collection, stewarded by Art Properties and based in Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, includes nearly 1,000 portrait paintings, as well as hundreds of portrait busts, photographs, and prints. This exhibition encourages students, faculty, and researchers to reconsider the world of portraiture and to encourage the use of the entire University art collection for curricular and educational programs, where new discoveries can be made every day.

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