The Last of England: Ford Madox Brown & Colonialism - Patricia Hardy

A Friends of Kenwood Sunday lecture given by Dr Pat Hardy.
Ford Madox Brown’s masterpiece about Victorian emigration is probably his most celebrated work. With the compelling gaze of the emigrant couple, modelled on the artist himself and his wife Emma, the work is usually interpreted as a melancholic parting from their homeland. But not necessarily so: the everyday subject of emigration from Britain and Ireland in the 19th century provoked an outpouring of works which captured the exodus of people. They sought new lives overseas, pulled towards new opportunities or pushed out by the tragedies of the Highland Clearances and the Irish Famine.
Dr Patricia Hardy is an art historian, exhibition curator and writer. She is currently Deputy Chief Curator of the Parliamentary Art Collection. She has previously worked at the Museum of London, the National Portrait Gallery, National Museums Liverpool and the National Horseracing Museum. She is also a trustee of the Friends of Kenwood House, London.
Introduction music: Don John of Austria by Isaac Nathan (c1791 - 1864), the 'father of Australian music'
Produced by Friends of Kenwood
www.friendsofkenwood.org.uk
@friendsofkenwood7574