In front of the banner advertising the RA Summer Exhibition, the swagger statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) by Alfred Drury stands garlanded with flowers. But the Academy he founded won’t be marking his tercentenary with a retrospective, just a small display and a series of artists’ lectures. For an anniversary show, you have to travel to his native Devon.
Ever since the Pre-Raphaelites dubbed him ‘Sir Sloshua’, Reynolds has been out of fashion
Ever since the Pre-Raphaelites dubbed him ‘Sir Sloshua’, Joshua Reynolds has been out of fashion: blame the outmoded ideals of beauty he promoted in his Discourses and his role as portraitist to the Georgian establishment. But Reframing Reynolds at the Box in Plymouth gives us a glimpse of a different Reynolds: one who didn’t always practise what he preached and could be tender, playful, even mischievous.
Intellectually curious, intensely gregarious and unusually well educated for an artist – his clergyman father was a master at Plympton Free Grammar School – Reynolds had a genius for networking.
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