WE RECOMMEND A DONATION OF £5 FOR THIS TALK

Stephens’s small oeuvre has been neglected and even dismissed by scholars of the movement. He was the first PRB to depict subjects from Tennyson and Chaucer and was committed to painting directly from nature in accordance with the Pre-Raphaelite principles.

The lecture will also present newly discovered paintings and sketches by Stephens which provide fresh insights into his artistic practice and will place his work in the wider context of Pre-Raphaelite production.

Robert Wilkes received his PhD from Oxford Brookes University in 2020, for his thesis on Stephens’s art and writings. He holds BA and MA degrees from Oxford Brookes and the University of York. He has published articles on Pre-Raphaelitism in the Burlington Magazine, the British Art Journal and the Pre-Raphaelite Society Review, and has contributed essays to two recent books: ‘Defining Pre-Raphaelite Poetics’ (2020) and the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition catalogue ‘Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours’ (2021).