COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY RECORD  April 15, 1994  Vol. 19 No. 24

 SHAKESPEARE SCENES ARE DEPICTED IN ABBEY EXHIBIT AT WALLACH ART GALLERY

      The mortally wounded Mercutio. King Lear disowning a faithful 
      daughter. Henry VIII in a fateful encounter at a masked ball. 
      These powerful scenes from Shakespeare's best-known plays are 
      dramatized in paintings and drawings by 19th-century artist Edwin 
      Austin Abbey in a new exhibition at Columbia.

      An American expatriate in England, Abbey was admired on both sides 
      of the Atlantic for his inventive and expressive portrayals of 
      Shakespearean characters. He fulfilled the Victorian literati's 
      enthusiasm for the bard with a prolific outpouring of 
      illustrations, both in widely distributed periodicals and in 
      public exhibitions, from the 1870s until his death in London in 
      1911.

      The exhibition, on view through June 4 at the Miriam and Ira D. 
      Wallach Art Gallery, is the first major public show devoted 
      entirely to Abbey's work in 20 years and the first dedicated 
      exclusively to his Shakespearean subjects. Titled "Unfaded 
      Pageant: Edwin Austin Abbey's Shakespearean Subjects, from the 
      Yale University Art Gallery and Other Collections," it features 75 
      oil and watercolor paintings, pen-and-ink and pencil drawings, and 
      notebook sketches of characters and scenes from "As You Like It," 
      "Much Ado About Nothing," "The Merchant of Venice," "Two Gentlemen 
      of Verona," "Othello," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Hamlet," "King 
      Lear," "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," among 
      other plays. Selected volumes from "Harper's Monthly," where Abbey 
      was an illustrator from 1871, will be shown with the original 
      drawings and paintings. Also on display will be nine costume 
      designs by Abbey for Henry Irving's planned 1898 production of 
      "Richard II," which have never been reproduced or exhibited.

      The gallery in Schermerhorn Hall is open Wednesday through 
      Saturday from 1:00 to 5:00 P.M; admission is free. Information: 
      854-7288.

      Most works in the exhibition were lent by the Edwin Austin Abbey 
      Memorial Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery in New 
      Haven, the world's largest repository of Abbey's works. The 
      exhibition will be shown at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 
      Washington, D.C., June 15-Sept. 20 and then at the Museum of Art 
      at Brigham Young University Nov. 12-Jan. 31, 1995.

      "Abbey's illustrations are technically dazzling and his oil 
      paintings achieve great expressive power," says Lucy Oakley, 
      exhibition curator and author of a 104-page catalogue accompanying 
      the exhibition. "His spectacular, archaeologizing vision of 
      Shakespeare's plays was widely acclaimed and influenced late 
      Victorian stage productions."

      The catalogue chronicles the history of Abbey's Shakespearean work 
      and evaluates his achievement and vision of the plays. An 
      introduction by Columbia Professor Allen Staley discusses Abbey in 
      the wider context of English art. Available at the Wallach Gallery 
      for $25, it includes 79 black-and-white and nine color 
      illustrations.

      Abbey was held in high regard by the English art establishment; he 
      became a full member of the Royal Academy in 1898 and was chosen 
      to record the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. Yet he 
      maintained his ties and affection for America even after he 
      settled abroad, declining an offer of knighthood in 1907 in order 
      to retain his U.S. citizenship. He completed murals for the Boston 
      Public Library in the 1890s and for the Pennsylvania state capital 
      in Harrisburg in the first decade of this century. He was elected 
      to the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts 
      and Letters.

      A related exhibition in Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript 
      Library, also organized by Oakley, features illustrated books and 
      prints from the library's collections. Titled "All the Pictures 
      Fairest Lin'd: Shakespeare Illustrated, 1709-1926," it is on view 
      through July 30 from 9:00 A.M. to 4:45 P.M. Monday through Friday. 
      The library is located on the sixth floor of Butler Library.