Rossettis: In Relation
Tate Britain’s exhibition The Rossettis suggested a different model for thinking about how artists’ careers and lives are shaped – not as the singular and self-contained subjects often presented by a monographic approach – but one that is relational, collaborative and part of familial and professional networks. While the exhibition was centred around Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, this conference used this model as methodology, exploring how the work of art and life are enmeshed, and encouraging interventions that look at and go beyond these artists to think through intermedial relationships between the poetic, pictorial, musical and decorative arts. The Rossettis exhibition also prompted discussion of the relationship of the arts to activism, organising, politics and labour. Contemporary artists and writers continue to draw on the work of these artists, directly and obliquely. What does it mean to think about the Rossettis (plural) today?
Day 1
Session 1: Sarah Victoria Turner, Carol Jacobi, Liz Prettejohn, Natalie Prizel, Imogen Hart, and Kimberley Rhodes
Opening comments from Sarah Victoria Turner and Carol Jacobi, followed by Panel 1, "Methodologies" chaired by Liz Prettejohn and featuring Natalie Prizel, “Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Race Relations”, Imogen Hart, “Dorothy Walker and May Morris in Relation”, and Kimberly Rhodes, “Shakespeare’s Sisters: Sororal Subterfuge and Pre-Raphaelite Identity”.
Session 2: Sarah Victoria Turner, Glenda Youde, Wendy Parkins, and Jennifer Rabedeau
Glenda Youde, “A Complex Relationship: Gabriel, Christina and Elizabeth Rossetti”, Wendy Parkins, “‘I Never Quite Gave Myself’: Pre-Raphaelite Women and Gifts of Creative Exchange”, and Jennifer Rabedeau, "Pre-Raphaelite Women in Relation”
Day 2
Session 3: Nicholas Dunn-McAfee, Thomas Hughes, Marte Stinis, and Roisin Neenan
Panel 3, "Close Reading" chaired by Nicholas Dunn-McAfee, with Thomas Hughes, “Transformation in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s La Ghirlandata (1873) in Relation to Christina Rossetti”, Marte Stinis, “Love and Longing: Intermedial Relationships Between Painting and Music in the 1850s”, and Roisin Neenan, “'Absorption is Not Annihilation’: Kisses and Originality in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Poetry and Art”.
Session 4: Tim Barringer, Deborah Lam, Frances Varley, Tara Contractor
Panel 4, "Labour(ing) and Art(work)", chaired by Tim Barringer, featuring Deborah Lam, “Hard Work, Soft Work: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Effort in Relation”, Frances Varley, “Making Meaning in Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel at the Manchester Art Museum”, and Tara Contractor, "The Little Sister Art’: The Rossettis and the Illumination Revival”.
Session 5: Eduardo De Maio, Helena Cox, Sophie Lynford, Sadbh Kellett
Panel 5, "International Exchanges" chaired by Eduardo De Maio, featuring Helena Cox, “Czeching Out the Rossettis – Artistic and Literary Networks Mediating Pre-Raphaelite Art in 1900s Czech Lands”, Sophie Lynford, “The Rossettis in America”, and Sadbh Kellett, “’Better than the Lancelot of Arthurian Legend’: Katharine Tynan, Gaelic Mythology, and the Pre-Raphaelites”.
Closing Discussion: Carol Jacobi, Liz Prettejohn, Tim Barringer, Caitlin Meehye Beach and Sarah Victoria Turner
A conversation reflecting on the themes of the conference and exhibition with Carol Jacobi, Liz Prettejohn, Tim Barringer, Caitlin Meehye Beach and Sarah Victoria Turner.