news [Exhibitions, periodicals, and the MLA seminar]
The Blake Trust sponsored an exhibition at Edinburgh this past summer; we hope to have a report in the next Newsletter.
Gleanings from periodicals: Kathleen Nott reviewed Blake and Tradition by Kathleen Raine in the Aug. 17, 1969 issue of the Observer (“Symbols and Sources,” p. 21). In the Guardian for June 27, 1968, there is a news item and photograph with the caption “Homage to William Blake” (p. 6). The subject is the unveiling of a memorial relief sculpture of Blake—a triptych measuring 13 ft. by 9 ft.—at William Blake House, Marshall Street, London, W. 1. The sculptor is John W. Mills; two panels are in cast aluminum, one in bronze; the head is based on the life mask in the National Portrait Gallery.
The August 1969 number of Art and Artists magazine is devoted to “Art and Revolution”; it includes “William Blake: Revolutionary or Rebel?” by John Christopher Battye (pp. 24-25).[e]
begin page 41 | ↑ back to topThe Nation for April 28, 1969 published “William Blake and Nonviolence” by John Sutherland (pp. 542-544).
Two of the new pulls from Blake’s Dante plates produced for Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald are on display among recent acquisitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
There is to be another “Seminar” on Methods of Interpreting Blake’s Illuminations (last year it was called “Seminar 55” but we don’t yet know number or exact time and place) at the Denver meeting of MLA. It will be announced in PMLA. Persons wishing to attend should write to John E. Grant, English Department, State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 52240, Topic suggested: The Arlington Court picture.
A two-part article on “An Island in the Moon” begins in the September Bulletin of The New York Public Library (vol. 73, pp. 440-65), Illustrated by Blake’s drawings on the last page of the manuscript. It is “The satiric Blake: Apprenticeship at the Haymarket?” by Martha W. England. Part 2 in October.
Some of the Berg Collection Blakes will be in the forthcoming NYPL Berg Collection exhibition, “Pen and Brush: The Author as Artist.” Catalogue on sale Opening Day, October 2 (and by mail: 53 prepaid).