Samuel Palmer (1805–1881)

Samuel Palmer ranks among the most important British landscape painters of the Romantic era. Marking the two hundredth anniversary of the artist's birth, this exhibition is the first major retrospective of his work in nearly eighty years, uniting some one hundred of his finest watercolors, drawings, etchings, and oils from public and private collections in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. The exhibition highlights the artist's celebrated early work, executed in a visionary style inspired by William Blake, and reexamines Palmer's vibrant middle-period Italian studies and masterful late watercolors and etchings. It also includes a selection of works by artists in Palmer's circle.

Organized chronologically, the exhibition places special emphasis on the artist's early work. In 1822, Palmer met the artist John Linnell, who encouraged him to study Old Master prints and introduced him to William Blake (1757–1827). In response, Palmer produced visionary, intensely original works that remain compellingly fresh to twenty-first-century eyes. Examples on view include Early Morning, A Rustic Scene, and Palmer's celebrated Self-Portait (all Ashmolean). After moving to the Kent village of Shoreham in 1826, Palmer produced celebrated watercolors such as In a Shoreham Garden (Victoria and Albert), Oak Trees, Lullingstone Park (National Gallery of Canada), and A Cow-Lodge with a Mossy Roof (Yale Center for British Art). Palmer remained at Shoreham for nine years, painting The Sleeping Shepherd (private collection) and other poetic pastoral scenes.