ARTIST COLLECTIVES: PRE-RAPHAELITES TALK 1

With Martin Beek

Sat 27 Sep 2025, 11am–12pm

At the Museum and Online

This event takes place in-person at the Museum, and online via Zoom.

Tickets are £8 each. Booking is essential. Book below

With Martin Beek, artist and art historian

The first of two talks by Martin Beek which focus on Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces in the Ashmolean's collection and the city of Oxford in the Brotherhood’s development and patronage.

In his first talk in our Pre-Raphaelites series, Martin Beek explores the noble aims of the young Pre-Raphaelite radicals and discusses why their first paintings were considered highly controversial.

A converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids by William Holman Hunt, 1850

A converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids, William Holman Hunt, 1850 © Ashmolean Museum

Pre-Raphaelite portrait painting by Millais of the daughters of Noah holding a dove and olive sprig, one wears green, the other white - the top of the painting is framed by a semi-circular gold frame

The Return of the Dove to the Ark, Sir John Everett Millais, 1851, oil on canvas © Ashmolean Museum

The Pre-Raphaelites were fiercely criticised as breaking with conventional depictions and subject matter, as well as a rejection of the academic principals of composition and picture making.

Martin will discuss the innovative techniques of Millais and Hunt, and the medievalism of Rossetti and cite examples in the Ashmolean's world-famous collection of Pre-Raphaelite art.

The second talk in this series takes place on 4 Oct::