This handsome catalogue accompanies a major exhibition featuring over sixty works by Watts, some seen for the first time. Andrew Motion assesses Watts's appeal, while Barbara Bryant explores Watts's entire career and provides a context for his highly original portraits of the 1850s and 1860s. The book presents new perspectives on Watts as an innovative artist aware of the traditions in portraiture yet also keenly alert to new artistic developments like Pre-Raphaelitism and Symbolism.

 As one of tne great portrait painters ot the nineteenth century, George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) is best known for his "Hall of Fame" series, which forms a cornerstone of the National Portrait Gallery"s Victorian Collection. Yet the wider importance of Watts"s portraiture has never been fully appreciated since many works are in private collections and some have never been published. Commemorating the centenary of his death, this book is the first major study of Watts"s portraits and provides a unique opportunity to see many of the artist"s grand full-lengths, often strikingly beautiful and most hardly known, dating from the 1840s to the end of the century.

 Watts was one of the celebrities of Victorian London, counting Tennyson, Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaeliteartists and pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron among his friends. Much interviewed and honoured, he fostered his own renown and participatedin the creation of a considerable international reputation.Such a modern notion of the artist"s public image is familiar to us today, but Watts forged this role for himself in the interest of promoting his serious and high-minded art, which crucially included his portraiture.

 This handsome catalogue accompanies a major exhibition featuring over sixty works by Watts, some seen for the first time. Andrew Motion assesses Watts"s appeal, while Barbara Bryant explores Watts"s entire career and provides a context for his highly original portraits of the 1850s and 1860s. The book presents new perspectives on Watts as an innovative artist aware of the traditions in portraiture yet also keenly alert to new artistic developments like Pre-Raphaelitism and Symbolism.

Director"s Preface

Curator"s Preface

Foreword by Andrew Motion

GF Watts and the Potential of Portraiture

Subtle Alchemy: The Portrait Painter as Poet

Note to the Catalogue

Catalogue

Select Bibliography

Index