Exhibition in London

May 20th, 2015

Lines of Beauty – Rococo plasterwork and the art of Geoffrey Preston will be showing at The Foundling Museum in London this summer. The Foundling Museum is well worth a visit – not least for its spectacular rococo Court Room.

Reinstated in the current building after the demolition of the original Foundling Hospital in the 1920s, the Court Room features a collection of 18th century paintings, furniture and sculpture including works by Hogarth, Gainsborough and Reynolds, Roubiliac and Rysbrack. Many of these works were donated by the artists to support the Foundling Hospital, the UK’s first home for abandoned children. William Wilton, a successful London plasterer, donated the Court Room’s rococo stucco ceiling in the 1740s.

Alongside all this rococo splendour, we’ll be exhibiting work in stucco and cast plaster, with drawings, photographs and models. Large-scale works include a rococo ceiling and part of a proscenium arch created for a private cinema featuring a heron, raven and cockatoo. The process of making a ceiling is shown from start to finish with drawings, photographs and casts of our recent Great Drawing Room ceiling at Great Fulford in Devon. Photographs of 18th century ceilings, including those at Uppark House and the Foundling Court Room itself, show how the design of rococo plasterwork was guided by proportion and geometry. We hope the exhibition will celebrate rococo plasterwork and illuminate the art of modelling in clay and stucco.

The Foundling Museum

40 Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1AZ

Tel: 020 7841 3600

Website: www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk

 

4 June – 6 September 2015

Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 5pm

Sunday 11am – 5pm

Admission: £8.25 (including Gift Aid), concession £5.50 (including Gift Aid)