---

---

---

An Exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 12 January to 28 April 2007

The Soane Museum is pleased to announce a new exhibition dedicated to a series of remarkable drawings produced by Soane to illustrate his Royal Academy lectures between 1809 and 1820. These coloured illustrations, beautifully rendered by pupils from his own office, and spanning subjects ranging from pre-history to the latest buildings of Regency London, offer a fascinating insight into Soane's architectural mind.

Following his election as Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy in 1806, Soane set about preparing a series of lectures to be given each year, a requirement of this office. These lectures were intended 'to form the taste of the Students' and in order to elucidate his theoretical points Soane commissioned over 1,000 spectacular watercolour drawings. These drawings, rendered by pupils from Soane's own architectural practice, presented a unique record of world architecture and, for many, were the most appealing part of the lectures.

During the preparation of these illustrations Soane's crowded drawing office, not a large space, must have resembled something between a prison and a factory. His pupils were required to work for twelve hours a day and some of the drawings took weeks to complete. Nonetheless, this costly and labour-intensive exercise, subsidised by Soane, amounted to an extremely public spirited gesture. The resulting watercolours provided a rich visual source for his architectural students and were admired as fine works of art in their own right.

Although the drawings are rarely signed, thanks to the office day books it has been possible to identify the names of many of the pupils who undertook this painstaking work for Soane. Their drawings were in three main groups: first, those based on engravings from architectural folios on Soane's shelves, notably Piranesi; then, those drawn by pupils on many site visits in London; finally, a large number were based on Soane's designs and on drawings by earlier architects in his collection. Since Soane illustrated work by almost every major architect of his day, especially in London, it is astonishing that he included nothing whatever by his prolific rival, John Nash, a striking consequence of jealousy but doubtless also of his low opinion of Nash's skills.

Nothing like these drawings and the vision of world architecture that lay behind them had appeared before, nor would again until the parallel but visually unappealing technique of Banister Fletcher in his celebrated History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (1896). Though the complete text of Soane's lectures is immensely long, sometimes repetitive, and occasionally even tedious, it contains many provocative and unexpected passages, clarified and enlivened by his wonderful illustrations.

This exhibition will showcase 34 of Soane's most beautiful and important lecture illustrations. The curator is the leading architectural historian Professor David Watkin, author of Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (1996). In addition to the paperback of this volume, a six-page colour guide with a text by David Watkin will accompany the exhibition.

---

First and Last Loves
John Betjeman and Architecture

An exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 8 September to 30 December 2006

The Soane Museum is delighted to announce a major new exhibition celebrating the architectural writings, recordings and films of the poet Sir John Betjeman (1906 - 1984). The exhibition, which marks the centenary of Betjeman's birth, will bring together rare archive material, photographic and film footage as well as original art work from Betjeman's friends and contemporaries such as John Piper, in a celebration of his life-long passion for architecture.

From his bicycle tours of Victorian North Oxford as a young student, to his hard-fought campaigns to save endangered masterpieces such as St Pancras Station in the 1960s, architecture remained Betjeman's great love. Following a spell at the Architectural Review in the 1930s, he went on to edit the iconic Shell Guides and, after the war, became increasingly well known as for his television work - his long, successful career as a broadcaster reaching its peak with his classic film Metro-land.

As well as encouraging a better understanding of Britain's greatest towns and buildings Betjeman was a tireless promoter of the marginal, the overlooked and the obscure. His love for Victoriana (he was a founder member of the Victorian Society in 1958) and his passionate pleas to preserve Britain's railway architecture is credited with instigating the great revival of interest in buildings of the 19th century.

A major new catalogue, featuring contributions by Dan Cruickshank, Alan Powers, Ruth Guilding, Mark Girouard, Anthony Symondson, Gavin Stamp, Edward Mirzoeff and Ptolemy Dean, will be published to accompany the exhibition.

For those who are familiar with Betjeman's work this exhibition will provide a feast of new material and a rare opportunity to view vintage footage. For those unfamiliar with the man it will provide an irresistible introduction to one of the greatest architectural writers and broadcasters of the 20th century.

74-page colour exhibition catalogue with essays by Mark Girouard, Ruth Guilding, Gavin Stamp, Ptolemy Dean, Anthony Symondson, Edward Mirzoeff and Dan Cruickshank available from the Museum Shop

---

Soane's Magician:
The Tragic Genius of Joseph Michael Gandy

An exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 31 March to 12 August 2006

The Soane Museum is pleased to announce a new exhibition exploring the relationship between John Soane and Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843), who for more than thirty years painted Soane's masterpieces in dramatic, luminous perspective views. Gandy's watercolours, over thirty of which will be on display in this exhibition, are not only the most brilliant images of architecture ever painted in Britain; they also tell the story of the most creative partnership of its type in the history of British architecture.

Gandy was one of a twelve children of a waiter at White's Club on St James's whose talent for drawing was spotted by the club's architect. As a student of architecture at the Royal Academy he won the Gold Medal, and rich benefactors paid for a trip to Italy. In 1797 he fled Rome to escape Napoleon's troops and early in 1798 he knocked on the door of John Soane's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields to ask for work.

In his first week in the office he measured a house but Soane soon recognised Gandy's genius for depicting architecture in perspective. For the next thirty-five years he drew Soane's designs, either to open a client's cheque book or to show a completed project at its best at the annual exhibitions at the Royal Academy. As Soane's biographer Gillian Darley puts it, 'it is as if Soane's architecture had been waiting for someone to translate his buildings from pleasing fair copies into a continuous narrative - a visual argument with which to confront a critical world'.

Joseph Michael Gandy was unique in his ability to express on paper Soane's manipulation of space and light. He could capture the morning sunshine as it illuminated the breakfast room in a country house, or the magnificence of the new Bank of England. But Gandy also understood Soane's dreams - and demons - better than any contemporary. He juxtaposed the fantasies of his master's youth with the realities of his later life; he compared the greatness of Rome with the littleness of modern London; understanding Soane's preoccupation with posterity he showed him how his masterpieces would look as ruins of the future.

As Soane's career came to a close in the 1820s, Gandy painted dozens of huge perspectives imagining London reconstructed by Soane as a monumental neo-classical city of triumphal arches and heroic sculpture. 'I respect you above myself', Gandy wrote to Soane at this time; the two men shared an idealism unique to the period. By this time Gandy's career as an architect in his own right had failed, thanks to his stormy relationships with clients and his refusal to compromise his visions. More than once, Soane rescued him from the debtor's prison.

Gandy - a contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge - was the first true Romantic in British architecture and his life is a tragedy of self-destructive genius. After Soane's death, Gandy buried himself in architectural fantasies and fell deeper and deeper into debt. 'The English Piranesi' was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in Devon in 1843 and died in a windowless damp cell.

The exhibition has been curated by Sir John Soane's Museum to coincide with the publication by Thames and Hudson of Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England by Brian Lukacher.

A 6-page A4 colour guide to the exhibition is available from the Museum Shop

For details of Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England by Brian Lukacher please contact Rosalee Rich, Press Officer, Thames & Hudson. Tel: 020 7845 5020. Email

---

Pistrucci's Capriccio: a Rediscovered
Masterpiece of Regency Sculpture

An exhibition in the North Drawing Room at Sir John Soane's Museum from 1 February to 18 March 2006

From February to April 2006, Sir John Soane's Museum plays host to a forgotten masterpiece of Regency sculpture - the beautiful and mysterious Capriccio, by the Italian gem-engraver and medallist Benedetto Pistrucci (1783-1855). Thought lost since 1855, the Capriccio is an enigmatic composition of heaped-up fragments brilliantly carved from a single block of white marble. The re-emergence of this enigmatic sculpture in 2004 is considered one of the major rediscoveries in British sculpture of the last decade. The Soane is proud to host the Capriccio, together with a small display of other works by Pistrucci, for eight weeks before it goes on long-term show at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, the National Trust house that is home to the Rothschild Collection.

Benedetto Pistrucci is a largely forgotten artist of Soane's era. Born in Rome, and trained in Italy, most of Pistrucci's working life was spent in London at the Royal Mint. A prodigious, but volatile talent, his public commissions included the George IV gold sovereign and the celebrated, but uncompleted Waterloo Medal. The Capriccio is one of a handful of sculptural works by the artist, produced during a long stagnant period at the Mint where professional frustrations (not helped by his quarrelsome nature) had left him feeling bitter and isolated.

Although carved from a single block of marble, the Capriccio looks to the eye like a diverse pile of 'Antique' fragments. The fragments include a lion's head, portrait medallions, reliefs of a naked woman and a cage of wild beasts. On the back is a figure of Hercules in exile and a fleeing figure in contemporary dress. It is signed by Pistrucci and inscribed in Italian 'in the unhappiest years of his life, 1828'. Whilst the full meaning of its complex allegory is only partly understood, it is clear that Pistrucci's Capriccio is a sculptural manifesto, epitomising the sculptor's disappointments whilst in the employ of the Royal Mint.

This exhibition will display the amazing Capriccio, attempt to explain its complex meaning, and set it in context with other works by Pistrucci including busts, gems and medals. It will be shown in the North Drawing Room of the Museum where visitors will be able to draw parallels with Soane's own arrangements of classical antiquities and casts, modern pictures and sculpture and architectural models - a similar expression of an artist's enthusiasms, successes and disappointments. An illustrated catalogue, edited by Carlo Milano, will accompany the exhibition.

This exhibition has been made possible thanks to the generosity of Lord Rothschild. The spirited purchase of the Capriccio in 2005 through a Rothschild family charitable trust has ensured that this remarkable work of sculpture will remain in this country. In April the exhibition will travel to Waddesdon Manor where the Capriccio will remain on long-term show. The Museum would also like to thank John Hill of Jeremy Ltd who has made a contribution towards the costs of this exhibition.

24-page colour exhibition catalogue available from the Museum Shop

The exhibition will travel to Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire from 29 March to 29 May 2006

---

The Regency Country House: Photographs from the Country Life Picture Library

An exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 21 October 2005 to 25 February 2006

Sponsored by Savill's and Sotheby's with additional support from the Englefield Charitable Trust and Historic House Hotels Ltd

Sir John Soane's Museum is pleased to announce a new exhibition looking at some of some of Britain's greatest houses as recorded by the legendary photographers of Country Life magazine. The Regency Country House: from the Archives of Country Life is curated by John Martin Robinson, one of Britain's leading architectural historians, and is the first exhibition to provide a comprehensive survey of the key English country houses of 1800 to 1830. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated book of the same title, written by John Martin Robinson and published by Aurum Press in October 2005.

The Regency Country House is divided into three major sections: it looks at the princely palaces and houses associated with the Prince Regent (later George IV) himself, from Carlton House and Brighton Pavilion to Buckingham Palace, the nobleman's houses such as Tregothnan, and Eastnor Castle and gentleman's houses such as Southill, Bedfordshire and Sheringham, Norfolk and Luscombe in Devon. Drawing on the unparalleled archive of Country Life, the exhibition is richly illustrated with examples of work by leading country houses architects including the Wyatt dynasty, Henry Holland, John Nash, CR Cockerell, Robert Smirke, William Wilkins, Thomas Hopper, Humphry Repton and Sir John Soane, as well as regional designers such as Dobson of Newcastle and Webster of Kendal.

The exhibition identifies and examines the major architectural themes of the Regency, from the emergence of the Graeco-Roman style associated originally with the Wyatts to the development of the Gothic Revival, the Picturesque and 'Cottage Ornee' (rustic buildings of picturesque design) and the influential role of Thomas Hope whose country house and garden at Deepdene influenced the revival of the Italian style of garden design.

In the mid-20th century, after several decades of neglect and the estimated loss of 1,700 English country houses, the surviving houses of the Regency period took on a new lease of life, partly thanks to Country Life authors such as Christopher Hussey and Margaret Jourdain who played a significant role in the rediscovery and popularisation of the Regency period, a time when the English country house took on many of the qualities and attributes that we still take for granted today.

The Regency Country House follows highly successful exhibition England's Lost Houses held at he Soane in 2003. England's Lost Houses, curated by Giles Worsely, also featured photographs from the archive at Country Life.

The accompanying book The Regency Country House: from the Archives of Country Life by John Martin Robinson and published by Aurum Press is available from the Museum shop from priced at £40.

A 12-page full colour exhibition guide, priced at £1, is also available.

---

 

Wright to Gehry: Drawings from the Collection of Barbara Pine

An exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 21 April to 27 August 2005

Sponsored by the Conran Foundation and SOANE Ltd*. Media Partner: Blueprint

Sir John Soane's Museum is pleased to announce a new exhibition featuring original works by some of the icons of 20th-century architecture, drawn from one of the world's finest private collections. Wright to Gehry: Drawings from the Collection of Barbara Pine will showcase 60 drawings including works by such luminaries as Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, Mario Botta, Alvaro Siza, Louis Kahn and Frank Gehry. This is the collection's first appearance in Europe and it is fitting that the Soane Museum, for many years a place of pilgrimage for architects and designers, should host the exhibition.

Barbara Pine is a pioneer collector of architectural drawings, making her first purchases from the architects Richard Meier and Michael Graves in the 1970s. She has since collected works by both architects and furniture designers with a focus on concept and process drawings. These drawings and sketches give a unique glimpse into the creative mind of the author.

About half of the exhibition will be given over to process drawings that reveal the progression of creative ideas. There will be sketches by Mies van der Rohe for the Mountain House and for chairs vividly drawn in green crayon; a Le Corbusier sketch for the Maison du Lac; sketches for furniture by Gio Ponti, Mario Botta, Aldo Rossi and Asplund; Gehry sketches for a cardboard chair and fish and snake lamps and a coloured pencil sketch by Louis Kahn for his Indian Institute at Ahmedabad.

The second part of the collection consists of more finished designs. There are drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Johnson Wax Building; designs by Paolo Soleri for his desert house project 'Arizonian Nest'; a superb Hugh Ferriss rendering of the Municipal Asphalt Plant in New York, and many others.

This exhibition, which will be displayed in chronological sections, represents a rare opportunity to see drawings by the greatest European and American architects of the 20th century as well as presenting an overview of the development of architecture and design throughout the period. And for those intrigued to know how an architect thinks, these drawings will afford a valuable insight. Many of the drawings reveal, in the words of the collector, Barbara Pine, "the essence of an architect's work".

A full catalogue, compiled by Neil Bingham, will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition is curated by Margaret Richardson, who retires as Director of Sir John Soane's Museum at the end of April 2005.

Catalogue available from Museum shop

---

Thomas Banks (1735-1805): Britain's first modern sculptor

An exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum from 21 January to 9 April 2005

Supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and Daniel Katz Ltd

Thomas Banks (1735-1805) was a brilliantly gifted sculptor and one of the most influential artists of his time. His work ranged from exquisitely carved reliefs to dramatic neoclassical compositions 'of the epic class' that pushed marble to its limits. His greatest works had such emotional power that they reduced onlookers to tears but his radical political beliefs secured his position as the scourge as well as the toast of the English art establishment. To mark the bicentenary of his death on 2 February 2005, Sir John Soane's Museum is organising the first ever exhibition on Banks and his work.

Joshua Reynolds admired Thomas Banks (1735-1805) as 'the first British sculptor who had produced works of classic grace'. To mark the bicentenary of his death on 2 February 1805, Sir John Soane's Museum is organising the first ever exhibition of Banks' sculptures. Best known for his exquisitely carved bas-reliefs of historical and poetical subjects, Banks was inspired by his close friend the painter Henry Fuseli to reinvent the neoclassical male nude in dramatic compositions that push marble to its limits.

After seven years in Rome in the 1770s, moving in Fuseli's international circle of artists, Banks succeeded Falconet as sculptor to Catherine the Great in St Petersburg. Returning to Britain in 1782 he produced some of his most original and influential sculptures as church monuments. When his model for the tomb of Penelope Boothby (Ashbourne, Derbyshire) was exhibited at the Royal Academy such was its pathos that Queen Charlotte and the royal princesses wept, as did the child's father, Sir Brooke Boothby, when he visited Banks' studio.

Regarded by fellow artists as 'a violent democrat' Banks was arrested on suspicion of treason in 1794: in 1803 the last work he finished, a bust of Oliver Cromwell, was ordered removed from the Royal Academy exhibition as 'an improper object'.

The exhibition will also reveal how Sir John Soane's Museum was London's first permanent public gallery of contemporary sculpture, complementing contemporary critical debate over the latest unveilings of monuments in Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral. Banks was a close friend of Soane, and the eleven works by him which remain in the Soane museum today were the first modern sculptures that Soane collected. Despite his radical political views Banks was regarded in his own day as the equal of his celebrated contemporaries John Flaxman and Sir Francis Chantrey.

New colour photographs, specially commissioned for the exhibition, will present Banks's finest church monuments afresh as works of art. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition, by Julius Bryant, the Guest Curator of the exhibition, will be the first study of the artist to be published since 1938.

Catalogue available from Museum shop

---

Raymond Erith (1904-1973): Progressive Classicist

An Exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 8 October to 31 December 2004

Sponsored by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

Sir John Soane's Museum is pleased to announce a new exhibition examining the work of Raymond Erith, one of the most accomplished and original English architects of the last century. Raymond Erith: Progressive Classicist will take a fresh look at Erith's extraordinary body of work, bringing together the best of his drawings with a series of stunning new photographs.

Raymond Erith occupies an unusual position in the history of British architecture. Like his great hero, John Soane, he did not always follow the prevailing stylistic currents of his age. He also shared Soane's belief in 'progressive classicism', deciding not to reject tradition but draw creatively on its accumulated wisdom. Although in sharp contrast to the work of many of his contemporaries, Erith's architecture, with its subtle use of natural materials, meticulous (sometimes playful) detailing and skilled craftsmanship earned him wide respect and admiration. His work ranges from small houses to public buildings, such as the library and quadrangle at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; Jack Straw's Castle on Hampstead Heath and the New Common Room Building at Gray's Inn, London. The best known of his many restorations was the reconstruction of 10, 11 and 12 Downing Street.

Erith was a superb draughtsman and a selection of fine drawings, produced for the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibitions will be included in the exhibition. These will be augmented by a series of new photographs of Erith's work commissioned from the acclaimed architectural photographer Mark Fiennes.

This exhibition, curated by Lucy Archer, will not only provide the opportunity for a reassessment of Erith's architecture but it will also introduce his work to a new generation, too young to remember the exhibition which was held at the Royal Academy in 1976. During the thirty years since his death there has been a growing awareness of the continuing relevance of architectural tradition and there is much in the skilful blending of classical and vernacular in Erith's work to inspire designers of the twenty-first century.

Raymond Erith: Progressive Classicist will be accompanied by a lavish 80-page colour catalogue featuring essays by Lucy Archer, Ken Powell and George Saumarez Smith.

Catalogue available from Museum shop

---

Tea & Coffee Towers: Alessi at the Soane

An Exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum from 16 September - 4 December 2004

Sir John Soane's Museum is proud to announce the arrival of the international touring exhibition Tea and Coffee Towers in London. This is an exhibition of 20 remarkable tea and coffee sets designed for Alessi by some of the most exciting contemporary architects worldwide. The sets will be displayed throughout the unique domestic spaces of the Museum, amongst Soane's collection of paintings, sculpture, architectural drawings, casts and fragments.

The architects involved in this project include J N Baldeweg, Gary Chang, David Chipperfield, Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid, Future Systems and Will Alsop. All have ventured into new territory by designing objects for industrial manufacture and domestic use, using materials ranging from silver and titanium to wood and plastic. Some of the sets are futuristic and surprising, others are simpler, more easily recognised, but no less beautifully crafted. Each set has been produced in a limited edition of 99.

The project was inspired by a previous experimental collection produced by Alessi in the late 1970s, entitled Tea and Coffee Piazza, in which eleven architects designed tea and coffee sets in silver; this resulted in some iconic product designs such as Michael Graves's kettle.

It is particularly apt that this exhibition should come to the Soane Museum, which combines domesticity with highly complex architecture. The tea and coffee sets will be dispersed throughout the house on Soane's original furniture, as if ready to be used at any moment. This will underline the fact that these are familiar objects for simple human enjoyment, not abstract objets d'art. At the same time, seeing the designs of contemporary architects in the context of Soane's own work, and collection, will allow audiences to draw new contrasts and parallels. These exceptional pieces of 21st-century design will present a series of surprises to the visitor, appearing in a unique light in this fascinating exhibition.

Exhibition guide available on request

---

Saving Wotton: the Remarkable Story of a Soane Country House

An Exhibition in the Soane Gallery from 2 July to 25 September 2004

In October 1820, Wotton House, the noble seat of the Grenville family, burned to the ground. The owner, Lord Buckingham, immediately recruited John Soane as architect for the rebuild, and by 1823 a new house had risen from the ashes of the great Queen-Anne mansion. Soane inserted a brilliant sequence of interior spaces within the walls of the original building. His work survives, but only thanks to a painstaking restoration programme began after the house was rescued from demolition in the 1950s. Focusing on Soane's work of the 1820s, this exhibition will be the first to recount Wotton's remarkable story.

Lord Buckingham's desperate letter to Soane survives in the Museum archives, 'Por Wotton is burnd down get one of your foremen ready to set off immediately'. When Soane's surveyor arrived at Wotton House a few days later, he found the magnificent 'cradle' of the Grenville family reduced to a smouldering shell. Soane wasted no time: a week later he was dining with Buckingham, showing him designs for a new house. The project required all of Soane's tact and ingenuity as he sought to retain the 'ancient magnificence' of the house, and yet create an interior incorporating a host of his own distinctive architectural ideas.

This exhibition is based around Soane's exquisite drawings for Wotton which reveal the complex evolution of the new house. The most distinctive element of Soane's design, and the feature which absorbed most of his energies, was the magnificent inner hall, or 'tribune', a light well rising the full height of the house, forming its architectural centrepiece.

The exhibition also explores the post-Soane history of the house, in particular its rescue by Elaine Brunner. Mrs Brunner visited Wotton in 1957 intending to collect some salvaged columns. However, she was enchanted by the great house, then derelict and teetering on the brink of destruction, and bought it for £6,000. With the help of the first ever grant from the Historic Buildings Council, she began the long process of restoration. By the time of her death in 1998 she had succeeded in returning much of the house to its Soanean splendour.

Wotton, currently celebrating its tercentenary year, is very much a living building. Its present owners, Mrs Brunner's daughter and son-in-law, are continuing to restore the house and grounds. The final section of the exhibition will look to the future, in particular to the plans to restore Soane's inner hall or 'tribune' to its original state.

This is the first exhibition to concentrate on a single Soane project and the first time that many of the Wotton drawings have been on public display.

Catalogue available from Museum shop

---

'Hooked on Books': The Library of Sir John Soane, Architect, 1753-1837

An exhibition at the Weston Gallery, D.H. Lawrence Pavilion, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, Nottingham from 30 April to 30 August 2004

Why do people collect books? What do our books reveal about our identity, our world and the times in which we live? This exhibition will explore these questions by looking at the library of Sir John Soane (1753-1837) one of England's greatest architects and, for over sixty years, a passionate collector of books.

Since his death in 1837, Soane's library has remained intact as part of his London museum. However, the books are seldom displayed and rarely exhibited. Hooked on Books will put the jewels of Soane's library on public display for the very first time, offering a fascinating insight into the tastes, passions, and preoccupations of the architect and the age in which he lived.

For this exhibition fifty volumes have been selected from the seven thousand in Soane's diverse collection. Soane's great interests and passions will be revealed in ten different sections: Architecture and the Architect; The Origin of Architecture, Egypt, Exotic Horizons, Pompeii and Vesuvius; the Black Arts; Romantic Agony; Shakespeare; Napoleon Bonaparte and 'Master Nash, Master Nash...'.

The books on display will range from bibliographical treasures to modest guidebooks and professional manuals. Highlights will include a presentation copy of Percier and Fontaine's Palais, maisons et autres edifices modernes, 1798, from the Empress Josephine's library at Malmaison; a sumptuously bound copy of Sir William Hamilton's Campi Phlegraei. Observations on the volcanoes of the two Sicilies, 1776-79, with its dramatic coloured engravings from illustrations by Pietro Fabris; a French translation of Goethe's Faust, with lithographs by Eugène Delacroix, 1828; a copy of the 'Second Folio' of Shakespeare's plays, 1632, and two further volumes from the library of the actor David Garrick. A number of related prints, drawings and objects from Soane's collection have also been included, in order to show the way in which Soane's library and Museum are related.

Hooked on Books is curated by Sir John Soane's Museum, London, in collaboration with the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham. The exhibition and accompanying 40-page catalogue have been generously funded by the Designation Challenge Fund.

Catalogue available from Museum shop

'Architecture Unshackled':
George Dance the Younger 1741-1825

An Exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum from 10 October 2003 to 3 January 2004

Supported by the Baring Foundation

Described by C.R. Cockerell as 'the most complete poet-architect of his day', George Dance the Younger stands out as one of the pioneers of his profession. John Soane, his pupil and friend, saw him as 'one of the most accomplished architects of the English school' and praised the 'great fertility of invention' that infused his work. This exhibition, the first on this major architect since 1972, provides a chance for modern observers to appreciate the range and variety of Dance's work.

During his career Dance produced a series of groundbreaking designs for public and private buildings. He held the important post of Architect to the Corporation of London from 1768 (the only outstanding architect to have occupied this position), but produced much of his best work independent of the City. His earliest commission, the church of All Hallows, London Wall (1765-7) was the first neo-classical building erected in Britain. Newgate Gaol (1770-80), with its forbidding exterior pierced by a doorway over-hung with iron shackles, was widely acknowledged as a masterpiece. In the south front of London's Guildhall (1777-8) Dance became the first European architect to introduce Indian proportions and elements into a design. Dance's interiors were equally revolutionary: his use of domed and 'star-fish' vaulted ceilings and his interest in invisible light sources was to exert a profound influence on the work of his one-time pupil, John Soane.

The collection of Dance drawings acquired by Soane in 1836 (now housed in the 'shrine' cabinet in the North Drawing Room of his Museum) form the core of this exhibition. These drawings reveal Dance to be a brilliant draughtsman as well as a designer of great originality. They range from drawings Dance made during his time as a student in Italy (1758-64), through to his public works and the country house designs of his later career. Of his private house commissions his celebrated design for the library at Landsdowne House, Berkeley Square (1788-91) is perhaps best known, but he also designed houses at Stratton Park, Hampshire (1803-6), Coleorton, Leicestershire (1804-8) and Ashburnham, Sussex (1813-17) all of which exhibited startlingly new ideas. The exhibition also features Dance's extraordinary, unexecuted, project for redeveloping the Port of London at the heart of which was a double bridge spanning the Thames.

Exhibition Guide available from the Museum shop

'Architecture Unshackled': George Dance, 1741-1825 is curated by Jill Lever, who has written the first comprehensive catalogue of Dance's drawings in Soane's collection.
The catalogue is now available from the Museum shop, priced £150.

---

'Bob the Roman': Heroic Antiquity & the
Architecture of Robert Adam

An Exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum from 27 June to 27 September 2003

Sponsored by Howard de Walden Estates Limited

A major new exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum explores the work of Robert Adam (1728 - 92) one of the most influential figures in British architecture. The majority of exhibits are drawn from the extensive collection of some 9,000 Adam drawings at the Museum, which Sir John Soane purchased in 1833.

The 'Adam style', characterised by delicate neo-Antique ornament, is now synonymous with the refinement and elegance of the eighteenth century. Yet there was another side to Robert Adam, a love for monumental grandeur which blossomed during his stay in Rome during the 1750s. At that time he joked that he was so immersed in the cultural life of the city he would be known on his return to England as 'Bob the Roman'.

This exhibition focuses on 'Bob the Roman', exploring the ways in which Robert Adam's three-and-a-quarter years in Italy, prior to the setting up of his London practice in January 1758, were of crucial importance to the formulation of the architect. It was then that he encountered Heroic Antiquity, the grandeur of an architectural idiom that is articulated by bulk and mass and by the solemn ordnance of columns, niches, aedicules and extensive colonnades. It was here he found the 'the true, the simple and the grand' - qualities he strove to restore to the architecture of his own age. His buildings and his design projects show that Adam the architect is infinitely more challenging than Adam the interior decorator.

This exhibition focuses on how Adam learnt to draw in Rome, on his great projects inspired by antiquity - a 9ft long design for an immense Palace, the Bath Assembly Rooms and the Theatre Royal in London - as well as on his speculative scheme for fashionable housing at the Adelphi in London and on his enduring fascination with centrally-planned structures. This is Adam architecture 'in the round' and an attempt to illustrate both the novelty and heroic vision of the architect's invention.

This exhibition and the accompanying colour catalogue have been generously sponsored by Howard de Walden Estates Limited, the grand landlord to the most important surviving group of Adam houses in England, which include Portland Place, Mansfield Street and Chandos House, which will be fully restored this year.

---

John Flaxman 1755-1826: Master of the Purest Line

An Exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum and the Strang Print Room UCL from 25 April to 14 June 2003

Supported by the Henry Moore Foundation

John Flaxman, a friend and contemporary of John Soane, was the first British sculptor to achieve a major international reputation. In his time, the early 19th century, his work was hugely admired both in Britain and on the Continent. He was responsible for some of the most famous monuments in St Paul's Cathedral, to Nelson and others, but he was equally renowned for his designs for Wedgwood pottery and for his illustrations to classic authors like Dante and Homer. His work ranges from gigantic monuments to celebrities to touching single-figure memorial slabs for ordinary people. This exhibition, the first on Flaxman since 1979, aims to show why he is regarded by some as the greatest British sculptor of his age. The exhibition curator is David Bindman, one of England's most distinguished art historians.

Soane and Flaxman enjoyed a long friendship, first meeting as students at the Royal Academy. In the last few years of his life Soane acquired for his Museum a large number of plaster casts from Flaxman's studio via the sculptor's sister-in-law, also the source for the models and drawings in the collection at University College London. It is, therefore, wholly appropriate that John Flaxman: Master of the Purest Line is a unique collaboration between the Soane Museum and UCL, with displays at each institution. The Strang Print Room at UCL focuses on Flaxman's monument designs, drawing together models and original drawings, whilst the Soane Gallery will house a stunning collection of Flaxman's works on paper.

The drawings in the Soane Gallery, many never before been exhibited, are drawn from the Strang collection and augmented by works from the Royal Academy, the Soane Museum and Private Collections. A significant number of these drawings date from Flaxman's time in Rome (1788-94) and are characterised by a remarkable freedom of line. They show how Flaxman gradually refined and reduced the elements of the human form to produce his unique neo-classical outline style.

The Soane display includes a selection of Flaxman's original designs for illustrations to works by Homer, Aeschylus, Hesiod and Dante together with the published volumes (some extremely rare). It was these illustrations that made the artist a household name throughout Europe. The climax of the Soane Gallery exhibition will be the maker's plaster model for the celebrated silvergilt Shield of Achilles (now in the Royal Collection), a reminder that Flaxman's illustrative work was widely adapted as decoration for ceramics and silverware. In addition to the exhibition a special information sheet is provided on the many other Flaxman works in the permanent collection.

The exhibition is linked through a 'Flaxman Trail' (with free leaflet) to Flaxman monuments and sculpture at the Royal Academy, St Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and elsewhere in London.

---

---

---

---

---

---