Revisiting British Art 1660-1735. A one-day conference at the University of York

This conference is designed to open up new perspectives on a fascinating, important but under-studied era of British art. Between 1661, when Peter Lely was installed as court painter to the newly restored king, Charles II, and the mid-1730s, when the St Martin’s Lane Academy established itself as London’s dominant artistic forum, British art was in a state of continual flux. Established patterns of patronage and practice, linked in particular to the cultural spheres of the court and the aristocratic house, were being challenged by those associated with a burgeoning urban art world, centred in the English capital, but also encompassing national and regional centres such as Edinburgh, Norwich and York. The British art world was also being transformed by the traffic of artists, objects, texts and concepts across both global and national networks in this period, which helped shape a strikingly cosmopolitan and multi-faceted visual culture, populated by a rich mixture of foreign-born and local artists and ideas. ‘Revisiting British Art 1660-1735’ will showcase the latest scholarship on this dynamic period in the history of British art, and seek to identify promising directions in which research on this topic might move forward.

This is the first of a series of major scholarly events hosted by the AHRC-supported research project ‘Court, Country, City: British Art 1660-1735’. This three-year project (October 2009-September 2012), which is led by Professor Mark Hallett of the University of York and Professor Nigel Llewellyn and Dr Martin Myrone of Tate Britain, is designed to offer an original, scholarly and compelling history of the visual arts in Britain between 1660 and 1735. The project aims to highlight the crucial importance of this era within the longer history of British art, and place artistic practice, display and consumption in the context of the wider historical changes that were taking place within the nation as a whole.

The Conference will take place in the Berwick Saul Building at the University of York. For further details and booking arrangements see the Conference Programme and Information