Radical Portraiture 1789-1815
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: English
Abstract
This project researches how portraits of radicals were produced, disseminated and displayed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It involves English radicals of both sexes, of all classes and, if time and space allow, in other parts of Britain. It considers all portrait media, from oil paintings to tokens and printed ephemera. It asks how far portraits of radicals were intended for internal circulation, for example to encourage solidarity, and how as a form of outward-facing propaganda. It asks too whether radical portraits had distinctive characteristics and whether they created a distinctive 'radical aesthetic'.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Barbara Taylor (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Georgia Haseldine (Student) |
| Title | Exhibition display at the National Portrait Gallery to mark bicentenary of Peterloo Massacre |
| Description | I am curtaing an exhibition display for Room 18 of the National Portrait Gallery to to mark bicentenary of Peterloo Massacre. The display was my own idea, which I pitched for to the Chief Curator. I have selected and presented objects from the NPG's collection, opening July 2019. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Connections to other research and heritage organisations working on Peterloo. Increased my knowledge and experience of exhibition practices. |
| Description | My research has uncovered a vibrant culture of political portraiture in which visual representations of artisans took up and collaged images of power to fashion themselves as civic representatives for the democratic age towards which they were working. This ambition also shaped the elaborate governance structures of campaigning groups which gave their unenfranchised members voting rights and an opportunity to serve as representatives today while agitating for universal manhood suffrage (and later female suffrage) tomorrow. Popular protest strategies such as mass meetings, petitioning, and public lecturing also displayed campaigners as active citizens and potential representatives of the people. I work across all portrait media, from small metal portrait tokens to intimate painted portraits which were later engraved and sold cheaply across the country, when the sitter's fame demanded an accessible image. I also look at how portraits acted as tools of conservatism. Hostile caricatures made their way into parliamentary debates on reform. Effigies of Tom Paine, stuffed with fireworks and immolated before drunken crowds, fed loyalist hysteria about the spread of radical-democratic ideas in the wake of the French Revolution. At the heart of my proposed research is an examination of the vital role played by portraits in representing and reinforcing political ideologies, both reformist and conservative. My doctoral research has made me into an expert on the intersection of portraiture and the politics of representation in the parliamentary reform movement in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. |
| Exploitation Route | Continued study of the intersection of portraiture and politics. |
| Sectors | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | I have written a new audio guide - 'Radical Portraits' - for the National Portrait and have conducted a re-hang of the Regency Galleries at the National Portrait Gallery to tell the story of my PhD research. This means that outputs of my research into the portraits of reformers will reach the nearly 2m visitors to the National Portrait Gallery a year. I have worked on this for the past year and it will open at the National Portrait Gallery in April 2018. This keys into the more informal curatorial projects I do at the National Portrait Gallery, in updating records on the website and writing new texts for the recently acquired objects, all of which reach our public audience via the website or in the Gallery itself. In 2018-2019 I have pitched for and curated an exhibition display for the National Portrait Gallery to mark the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre. It will be on display in Room 19 for 1 year. This will potentially reach the 2million visitors who visit the NPG's permenant collection each year. |
| Sector | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | British Federation of Women Graduates Award 2018 (Beryl Mavis Green Prize) |
| Amount | £4,500 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 1273043 |
| Organisation | British Federation of Women Graduates |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2018 |
| End | 09/2019 |
| Description | George B. Cooper Fellowship from the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University, New Haven, in 2017. |
| Amount | $1,896 (USD) |
| Organisation | Yale University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 08/2017 |
| End | 09/2017 |
| Description | Postdoctoral Fellowship |
| Amount | £10,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2021 |
| End | 11/2021 |
| Description | Research Travel Grant |
| Amount | £2,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2018 |
| End | 04/2018 |
| Description | Protest and portraiture, public talk at the National Portrait Gallery, November 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This 45 minute talk outlined my research into the use of effigy portraits to a study group of portrait specialisits and interested members of the generla public. This was followed by 30 minutes of questions and debates about the role of ephermeral portraiture in protest. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Making her mark: Portraits of radical women, Hackney Museum public talk for the East End Women's Museum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In collaboration with the East End Women's Museum and Hackney Museum, I gave a 1 hour public lecture about the role of women radicals from Hackney in the radical reform movement and the campaign for votes for women. This was followed by questions and a tour. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Paper at Portraiture and Biography international conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Paper given to international portrait scholars at 2-day conference sponsored jointly by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the National Portrait Gallery, London. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/event-root/november/international-conference-29112018 |
| Description | Public Lecture to the general public at National Portrait Gallery |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public lunchtime lecture for the National Portrait Gallery's Rebel Women series. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/event-root/august/lunchtime-lecture-02082018 |
| Description | Radical Women, paper at the annual women's conference at Notre Dame University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This paper was given as part of an academic workshop on women and sociability in the eighteenth century. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Subject specialist lecture to British Art Medal Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Lecture to British Art Medal Society specialist group |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.bams.org.uk/lecture-medals-portraits-and-the-radical-reform-movement/ |