Huntington Art Gallery, Works on Paper Room
Many of the greatest practitioners of landscape painting in Britain also were actively engaged in printmaking. “Picturesque to Pastoral” explores the graphic side of landscape in British art from the 18th through the 20th century. From the rustic countryside depicted by Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) to the visionary dreamscapes of Graham Sutherland (1903–1980), this focused installation of about a dozen prints showcases the variety of techniques the medium affords—wood engraving, etching, aquatint, drypoint, and mezzotint—as well as the many ways the view of landscape changed over time. In their shift from rural to urban subjects and from poetic description to interior vision, these rarely seen items from The Huntington’s art collections reveal how artists reworked this subject matter to express their own sensibilities.
Wooded Landscape with Herdsman Driving Cattle over a Bridge, Rustic Lovers, and Ruined Castle, c. 1780
Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-1788) Soft-ground etching. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, Gift of Norman Baker of Evans, Pierson, & Co.
A Summerland (Ploughing in Suffolk), 1831. David Lucas (British, 1802-1881), after John Constable (British, 1776-1837) Mezzotint. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
March Morning, 1933. Paul Drury (British, 1903-1987) Etching. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, Gift of Russel I. Kully.
Pecken Wood, 1928. Graham Sutherland (British, 1903-1980) Etching. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, Gift of Russel I. Kully.
