Emma Newport is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Sussex, having previously been a Research Fellow at King’s College London. She is interested in eighteenth-century attitudes to China and, more broadly, in women’s positions in a network of global exchanges of ideas and objects. Emma teaches Romantic poetry, with a focus on lyric poetry,…
Mental Health Awareness Week, 2017: My Monsters Inside, by Mime Gerrits
To mark Mental Health Awareness Week (8 -14 May 2017) we are showcasing Mime Gerrits’ My Monsters Inside, a series that tackles the stigma around mental health. Mime is a 16-year-old artist studying at the University of Creative Arts and this series was developed in response to the Dalziel Archive as part of the ‘Engraved in Time:…
Uncovering the Coalbrookdale Company catalogues: Ironware and Illustration, by Georgina Grant
Georgina Grant is a Curator for the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, based at Blists Hill Victorian Town. Her role is varied, ranging from the development and delivery of the interpretation of the 52-acre site, to installing Quaker costume displays and giving talks on a traditional Victorian Christmas. Georgina will be speaking further on the research…
‘A Personal Journey of Discovery’, by Douglas Downing
Douglas Downing is a descendant of the Dalziel family. He has a passion for all things digital, including photography, film and television production. His early experiences working for ITV Anglia and the Natural History Museum, gave him the opportunity to indulge in his fascination of researching and rediscovering forgotten stories and exploring unknown places. Here, he…
‘Magic into Print’ – some thoughts on the history of wood engraving, by Brian Maidment
Brian Maidment is Professor of the History of Print at Liverpool John Moores University. His research interests are focused on the nineteenth century, especially mass circulation, popular and illustrated literature, and he has published widely on a broad range of topics, although more recently he has concentrated his interests on Victorian periodicals and early nineteenth-century…
Through the Looking Glass: Wood Engraving, Photography and Telegraphy, by Natalie Hume
Natalie Hume is a PhD candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her thesis, ‘The Graphic Representation of America in Britain, 1865–1880’ is undertaken as part of Scrambled Messages – the Telegraphic Imaginary 1857–1900, an intercollegiate research project with Kings College London and the Institute of Making, UCL. Natalie will be speaking at the Woodpeckings…
Knight and Beggar, by Huddie Hamper
We collaborated with UCA Rochester on a project for 16 to 18-year-old art students. Huddie Hamper created a woodcut inspired by ‘Prince Bahman and the Dervish’ in Dalziel’s Arabian Nights’ Entertainments (i.e. The Thousand and One Nights), 1865. Here, Hamper reflects on the creative process behind his woodcut ‘Knight and Beggar’: This work was heavily influenced by the…
Woodpeckings: Victorian prints, book illustration and word-image narratives, British Museum, 16-17 June 2017
Friday 16th – Saturday 17th June 9am-5pm Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum Registration for this event is now closed. Conference Programme Book for conference drinks & buffet This two-day event presents new perspectives on Victorian prints, book illustration and word-image narratives, brought into dialogue with scholarly interpretations of the Dalziel Archive, a phenomenal resource for…
“Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” By Maisy Plummer
We collaborated with UCA Rochester to pilot a project for 16 to 18-year-old art students. Here we publish Maisy Plummer’s reimagining of the Dalziel Brothers: a coruscating satire that brings Victorian illustrations into dialogue with our contemporary moment. The illustrations Plummer used are from Carroll’s Alice books, Valentine’s Warne’s Home Annual, Rowley’s Gamosagammon, and the magazine London Society. Scroll down…
Caught in Time
We are currently planning a co-curated, touring digital exhibition on Victorian illustration and its relationship to contemporary art, including wood engraving, illustration and digital art forms. The exhibition has the working title Caught in Time and will be hosted at public libraries and university digital humanities labs nationwide, installed through multiple screens and projection. The travelling display…
Ice bound, by Helen Bailey
Helen Bailey’s poem ‘Ice bound’ was inspired by fragments of texts on wood engraving, natural history and Arctic exploration. It developed out of an exercise in cut-up poetry, at our creative writing workshop on seascapes and the Arctic, held in the Prints and Drawings department of the British Museum on 3rd December 2016. The texts that were used are listed below…
Lost Letters creating writing workshop, 2016: ‘I stood’, by Sahil Rathod
Sahil Rathod’s poem was produced during a creative writing workshop held the University of Sussex in September 2016. In the workshop, called ‘Lost Letters’, writers produced new creative works using selected prints from the British Museum’s Dalziel Archive, especially pictorial initials that, within the archive, had become separated from their original texts.
Re-imagining the Dalziels: National Art and Design Saturday Club Masterclass, University of the Creative Arts, 29 April 2017
On Saturday 29th April 2017 the Dalziel Project ran a masterclass for the National Art and Design Saturday Club at the University of the Creative Arts, Rochester. The Saturday Club is an independent charity working with 13-16 year olds and dedicated to raising attainment, broadening horizons and enhancing life skills. Hosting their sessions in museums and universities across the UK,…
Victorian trade engraving and contemporary practice workshop, British Museum, 8th April 2017
The Dalziel Public and Educational Programme aims to extend the reach of the Dalziel Project beyond the realms of academia and encourage schools, art clubs, artists, designers, historians, and interested individuals to engage with the archive. On Saturday 8th April 2017, we were joined in the Prints and Drawings study room at the British Museum…
‘Engraved in Time: Re-imagining the Dalziels’ at the University of the Creative Arts, 14 February 2017
Over the past year we have been developing an educational programme to enable schools and colleges to support their courses of study using material from the Dalziel Archive. From 30 Jan – 14 Feb 2017 we piloted a project with sixty 16 to 18- year-old students taking the Extended Diploma in Art and Design at…
‘A glass of this kind’ by LL: fragments from A Treatise on Wood Engraving
‘A glass of this kind’ is a poem by LL, composed out of fragments found from John Jackson and William Andrew Chatto’s book, A Treatise on Wood Engraving, Historical and Practical (London: Bentley, 1839). The piece was developed out of an exercise in cut-up poetry, at our creative writing workshop on seascapes and the Arctic, in the Prints and Drawings department…
Ink and Light, by Lindsay Smith
Lindsay Smith is Professor of English and co-director of the Centre for Photography and Visual Culture at the University of Sussex. She has written extensively on Victorian painting, poetry and photography, and her work continues to engage the difficult and hesitant spaces between established disciplines. Lindsay’s most recent project is on Lewis Carroll as a creator…
‘Song for gouging wood and water’, a collaborative sonnet
This collaborative sonnet was improvised during our creative writing workshop on seascapes and the Arctic, in the Prints and Drawings department of the British Museum on 3rd December. The sonnet responds to wood engravings by Dalziel and Nancy Campbell’s poetry collection, Disko Bay. By Sarah Alexander, Helen Bailey, Camilla Bostock, Nancy Campbell, Nancy Gaffield, Cage Williams, Katerina Klaric, Jane McCarthy…
Seascapes and The Arctic ~ Creative Writing Workshop, British Museum, 3rd December 2016
An afternoon of talks and creative writing practice around the collections of the British Museum’s department of Prints and Drawings, led by Forward Prize short-listed poet Nancy Campbell, and Bethan Stevens (University of Sussex). This session included creative writing and discussion focussed on wood engravings from the Dalziel Archive in the British Museum. During the afternoon, Nancy Campbell…
The Hatter and the King’s Messenger, by Nicholas Royle
In celebration of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in November 1865, we have a special blog post by Nicholas Royle, Professor of English at the University of Sussex. In this piece he responds to the two images below, two different renderings of same illustration, known as ‘Living Backward’, or the ‘Hatter in Prison’. On the…