Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery
1 October 2024 – 30 August 2025
The Arborealists have been invited to participate in an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the death of artist Benjamin Haughton (1865 – 1924) at Portsmouth City Museum & Art Gallery in July this year.
Trees were a major subject for Haughton and the double exhibition will be staged in 2 large, newly refurbished galleries as two separate elements.
In 1973 Haughton’s family donated over 300 paintings to the museum, and though they have been exhibited in various displays in the past, this exhibition will showcase more of his works than ever before, including some that have never been seen. As a contemporary foil, The Arborealists will illustrate how art practice has developed over the intervening years while demonstrating the continued significance of the subject.
Born in Cheshire in 1865, the son of a farmer, Haughton had no art training until he attended Bushey Art School in Hertfordshire at the age of 23. He lived alternatively in Tuscany, Kent and the West Country and knew celebrated artists William Nicholson and James Pryde. Haughton exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of British Artists becoming a member of the latter, and for a time he became associated with the Newlyn School of art and their plein-air style. His favoured subjects were quiet rural backwaters, woodland, trees ponds and meadows.