Festivals and Films

Beauty, Morals and Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde

From 12 Sep 2011 to 14 Jan 2012

13 September-15 January 2012. This exhibition explores the British aesthetic movement in the second half of the 19th century.

The movement sought to break away from the materialism and rigid morals of the prevailing Victorian establishment and was a reaction to the inelegant visual effects of the previous century's industrial revolution.

Painters, poets, decorators and designers proposed a new idealisation of beauty, combining artistic creativity and lifestyle through photography, the decorative arts, literature and fashion, from the 1860s to around 1900.

The exhibition showcases the movement's biggest movers and shakers: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, James McNeill Whistler, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde.