Love in a Mist: Early 20th century watercolours

Lady Lever Art Gallery

22 June - 1 December 2002

This charming display of 14 watercolours by Robert Anning Bell and his contemporaries takes its name from a work by J Herbert MacNair.

J Herbert MacNair, his wife Frances and Robert Anning Bell taught in the University of Liverpool’s Applied Art department and promoted the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement amongst their students.

The exponents of the Arts and Crafts movement emphasised the beauty of craftsmanship for its own sake. They made no distinction between fine and decorative arts, working on book illustrations, paintings, mosaics, stained glass, murals and posters.

The Balcony by Robinson

These artists were influenced by the dream-like subjects of Burne-Jones and the decorative schemes of French painter Puvis de Chavannes, rejecting the narrative tradition of previous decades. Instead they produced imagery relating to inner worlds of mystery and imagination.

The exhibition includes a theatre design by Charles Ricketts, plus delicate and meticulous works by Maxwell Armfield and E Reginald Frampton. It also features Frederick Cayley Robinson, w ho like Frampton used egg tempera to give images a fresco-like texture.