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Celebrated, forgotten and remembered...
Sir James Thornhill and the Legacy of the Painted Hall.
Greenwich Hospital was established at Queen Mary's instigation in 1694 and designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Nicolas Hawksmoor. Wren took inspiration for this new complex of buildings from other modern European projects to house sick and injured military veterans.
The Painted Hall at its heart today embodies centuries of national and collective memory, but what of Sir James Thornhill, the artist who designed and executed the extraordinary wall and ceiling paintings that adorn the building?
Thornhill, a grand-scale decorative painter, was the first British artist to receive a knighthood. As mural paintings fell out of fashion, however, Thornhill became a marginalised figure and it is only in the last few decades that art historians have started to retrieve him from obscurity.
Dr Anya Matthews, will discuss the Painted Hall, Greenwich (1707-26) at the annual Wren Talk in St Bride's Fleet Street. Dr Matthews is Research Curator, for the Painted Hall conservation project at the Old Royal Naval College.
For full details and advance booking details please click here
This event is part of the London Festival of Architecture which takes place between 1st and 30th June. For more information: www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org
The Painted Hall talk is part of an ambitious conservation project members of the public now have a once in-a-generation opportunity to see Thornhill's paintings at close quarters from a visitor observation deck. For more information: www.ornc.org/painted-hall-project
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