Blakefest 2022
RADICAL VISIONARIES – Blake, Turner and Shelley
Saturday 24th September 2022, 6pm
Tickets £15 (to include a glass of prosecco or soft drink)
Explore the visions in paintings and words of William Blake, Joseph Turner and Percy Bysshe Shelley as Blakefest is held this year in the magnificent surroundings of Petworth House. Enjoy a glass of prosecco at a reception in the Battery House with South Downs poets and musicians before a presentation on the radical visions of Blake, Shelley and Turner by Dr Alexandra Loske, Curator of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and Jeremy Page, poet and editor of Frogmore Press. We will then proceed to the North Gallery where a number of Blake’s paintings, including his depictions of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Spencer’s Fairy Queen, can be viewed as well as the fine collection of Turner paintings, on loan from the Tate, in the adjacent rooms.
William Blake lived in the Sussex seaside village of Felpham near Bognor Regis from 1801-1803, where he saw visions of angels, was inspired to write Jerusalem and was later placed on trial in Chichester for sedition after an altercation with a soldier outside an inn. Shelley was born at Field Place near Horsham and his father served as MP for Shoreham. 2022 is the bicentenary year of his death at the age of 29 in Italy. Turner spent time at Petworth painting a series of canvases inspired by the Petworth and Sussex landscape.
Be inspired and entertained as Alexandra Loske and Jeremy Page are joined by South Downs poets and actors, with promenade readings plus musical interludes on guitar played by Zoe Barnett.
Tickets £15 (to include a glass of prosecco or soft drink) available from the Novium, Tower Street, Chichester, PO19 1QH. Tel. 01243 816525
https://chichesterboxoffice.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873629377
Entrance to Petworth House for this event is via the town entrance at Church Lodge, adjacent to St Mary’s Church, GU28 0AE. Car parking is available at Pound Street car park, GU28 0DX, a short walk from the House.
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Blakefest at Petworth House is jointly organised by the South Downs Poetry Festival and Blakefest for Petworth House, NT. Petworth House, London Road, Petworth, GU28 0AE.
Alexandra Loske is an art historian and curator with a particular interest in the history of colour in Western art, print culture, and architecture. She was born and grew up in Germany and came to the UK in 1997. She has been working in various roles at the University of Sussex since 1999 and as a researcher and curator at Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust, Brighton, since 2008. Alexandra is the author of several books on art and culture including A Cultural History of Colour in the Age of Industry (Ed., Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). She has significant media experience and has appeared and contributed to many TV and radio programmes, both nationally and internationally.
Jeremy Page is the founding editor of The Frogmore Papers, has published several collections of poems, among them In and Out of the Dark Wood (HappenStance, 2010) and Closing Time (Pindrop, 2014), and translated Catullus, Leopardi and Boris Vian. His novella London Calling was published by Cultured Llama in 2018. His latest poetry collection is The Naming.
Zoe Barnett is studying for a Masters degree in guitar at the Royal College of Music. She has been crowned as Sussex Young Musician of the Year, 2022, and works as a guitar performer at concerts and events.