Reviving the lost art of the ‘painter-stainer’, internationally renowned artist Adam Dant explores the myths, legends and fables of ancient Britain in a new exhibition of painted cloths, maps and tableaux at Newlands House, West Sussex.
Perhaps best known for his pictorial maps and narrative ink drawings, artist Adam Dant (b.1967) has been dubbed ‘The draftsman laureate of The British Art World.’ Critics have most often likened Dant to William Hogarth, whose 18th-century satirical prints were created with a moral purpose in mind. “Mine are underpinned by subversion,” Dant says, “dressed up in traditional clothes.”
Like the work of his 18th century artist forebears, Dant’s panoramas of urban life cram familiar public spaces with historical motifs and classical allusions, all the while providing a humorous visual commentary on contemporary culture.
His combination of draftsmanship and imaginative vision have not only earned him numerous accolades and awards, including; The Rome Scholarship in Etching and Engraving (1993), The Jerwood Drawing prize (2002) and his appointment by Parliament as ‘Official Artist of the 2015 UK General Election’, but also the sobriquet of ‘The Hogarth of our times.’
Pseudo-History
For his new exhibition at Newlands House Gallery in Petworth, West Sussex, Adam Dant revives the long-lost art of The Painted Cloth and with it the origin stories of Ancient Britain, it’s myths, legends and its rulers, thus tracing the lineage of King Charles III directly back to the Ancient Greek god Zeus.
Making direct reference to the same ‘pseudo-histories’; Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (c.1095-c.1155) and The Mabinogion (12-13th century), which would have inspired the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Henry Purcell (1659-1695) and Inigo jones (1573-1652) characters such as Bran the Blessed, Brutus of Troy, Gogmagog and Boudica are brought back to life across Dant’s series of giant (typically 2.5 x 1.5m) painted cloths, reconnecting a contemporary audience with the ‘Legends of ‘Albion’ (the archaic name for Great Britain).
This novel series of Painted Cloths will be accompanied by a selection of Dant’s works on paper, which act as preparatory cartoons, demonstrating how the artist’s process from initial research and fashioning of designs is applied to an art form which pretty much disappeared in the late 18th century.
“It’s not like oil painting,” Dant observes, “in some ways, it’s more like painting and decorating.”
Once a common alternative to tapestries, decorative wall paintings and paneling, painted cloths, commissioned from the craftsmen of The Worshipful Company of The Painter-Stainers, would have adorned both the Grand Houses of the nobility as well as the modest lodgings of merchants, clergy and even humble printers. In short, anyone urbane enough to be able to interpret and appreciate the classical, biblical and mythological themes depicted in layers of vivid colour and lively, cursive draftsmanship. It was once an art form that Londoners would have encountered in all spheres of their daily lives, during visits to court, the theatre, public pageants as well as lining the walls of their homes.
Mythic
Inspired by the eclectic collection of The London Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House, Adam Dant’s retelling of Britain’s mythic past incorporates objects and images from The Society’s 300 year old repository of treasures, conjuring up stories and scenes which would have been wholly familiar to people living in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, before the medium of The Painted Cloth was superseded by wallpapers and other means of interior decoration.
Visitors to Newlands House can expect to encounter a lost world of unfamiliar sagas, how Brutus and his Trojans founded New Troy on the banks of The Thames, how the disembodied head of Bran The Blessed came to be buried at The White Hill, how a race of monstrous giants wandered the islands of Albion and of course, how Prince Harry is descended from Zeus.
The exhibition will also showcase a selection of Adam Dant’s latest maps and tableaux, prepared in his official role as the 2024/25 Lord Mayor of London’s ‘Artist in Residence’ which further explore and reveal the colliding and coalescing chronicles of British mythology. These include personifications of ‘The Guardians of London’s Lost Rivers’, ‘Cartographic portraits of Legendary Londoners’ as well as cartographic guides to all manner of mythic realms; theatrical, criminal and crypto-zoological.
To accompany the exhibition, several events are currently being planned in which Dant will reveal, in conversation and practical display the details of his methods, motivations and inspirations.
He says: “The sobriquet ‘Legend’ as it is currently bandied around has a lot of heavy lifting to do when put up against mythical ‘Legends of Albion’ such as Brutus and his Trojans and King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. My revival of the lost art of the painted cloth for the modern age is also an attempt to reintroduce magical common histories, however ridiculous, back into our daily lives thus elevating us all from futile quotidian cares with colour and ‘fancy’”.
Adam Dant’s work is exhibited internationally and is in the collections of Tate Britain, MOMA, New York, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Musee D’Art Contemporain Lyon, HRH The Prince of Wales The Museum of London and various other public and private collections.
Newlands House
Newlands House Gallery is inspired by the historic associations of Petworth and Sussex with great artists, writers and designers from times past. Running in parallel with exhibitions dedicated to modern and contemporary art, photography and design, the gallery’s annual cultural programme builds on the heritage of Petworth and the town’s reputation for excellence in music, literature and antiques.
Newlands House occupies a spacious Grade II listed Georgian townhouse and adjacent coach house in Petworth, West Sussex, in the heart of the South Downs. Spanning 7,500 square feet, the building was originally built for Dr. Newlands in the 18th century and was previously occupied by an antiques and interiors shop, Augustus Brandt Antiques. Petworth boasts one of the country’s largest art collections, housed in the National Trust’s Petworth House and Park, and sits at the centre of Sussex’s burgeoning cultural scene, spanning museums, art centres, festivals, vineyards, nature trails and stately homes.
www.newlandshouse.gallery
See also: Anthony Daley Presents Irreality
