Catalogue: A Vision of England: Paintings of the Norwich School

The Colman Art Galleries at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery house the world’s largest public collection of paintings by the Norwich School of artists, the fi rst regional society of artists established in this country.

In 2011-12 the galleries were completely refurbished and their temporary closure allowed thorough condition-checking of the paintings. Many oils and frames were cleaned and/or treated, while a large proportion were reglazed with low-reflecting glass.

During this period paintings conservator Rose Miller was able to examine in great depth a large number of oils by John Crome and John Sell Cotman at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge, creating a large body of new technical analysis on both artists.

New views

Previous publications have delivered comprehensive histories of the Norwich School.

A Vision of England, designed by Norwich’s East Publishing to evoke the feel of our art galleries, highlights instead a selection of paintings from the collection, many of which are acknowledged masterpieces, while others are less-known but intriguing works that merit closer inspection.

Through essays, new scholarship and illustrations, it introduces readers to fresher ways of looking at the Norwich School.

Contributors to this book, which was made possible by the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund through the Great British Art Debate, include curators who devoted decades to the study of the Norwich School, such as Andrew Moore and Norma Watt, the castle’s former keeper and assistant keeper of art respectively. As the castle’s current curator of historic art, I have tried to build on their work, asking questions about the school’s lack of recognition.

Norwich School

Some of Rose Miller’s research is published here for the first time, giving a fascinating new insight into what literally lies beneath the surface of Crome and Cotman’s paintings.

Norwich School scholars and emerging researchers have contributed fresh new ideas and angles. Many of them, such as Paris Agar, Kajsa Berg, Anna Green and Sarah Moulden, have been associated with the University of East Anglia.

Finally, writer and critic Jonathan P Watts has provided links across time and media by exploring the relevance of the Norwich School to artists living or working in Norfolk today. A Vision of England could easily have been titled A Vision of Norfolk or A Vision of Britain.

The artists were closely linked with their region, but many also travelled further afield and depicted scenes of Wales and Scotland.

We chose A Vision of England because this group of artists, while living mainly on the fringes of England, participated fully in the activities of the London art world. With this book we tried to analyse their peculiar vision, its successes, failures, incongruities and idiosyncrasies.

Giorgia Bottinelli is the curator of historic art at Norfolk Museums Service