270. Small Exhibition Charles Ricketts 1866-2016

On the 1st of October, a small themed exhibition will be opened in Museum Meermanno to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Charles Ricketts's birth on 2 October 1866, 150 years ago.

The exhibition explores Ricketts as a narrator/illustrator, who takes a story, and moves it in another direction by means of his imagery. On show are his wood-engravings, sketches and proofs for The Parables from the Gospels (1903) and (reproductions of) his drawings for Oscar Wilde's prose poems, and the prose poems he remembered Wilde told him, recorded in his Oscar Wilde, Recollections and Beyond the Threshold.

Last Monday, Ellen van Schie of the Museum Meermanno and I, arranged the objects in four of the museum's cases on the second floor.

Ellen van Schie, Museum Meermanno, arranging objects

A view of the small exhibition room in Museum Meermanno

The arrangement of original pencil sketches, proofs, and wood-engravings for The Parables from the Gospels invites the viewer to have a close look at Ricketts's treatment of the texts, the visual details, the movements, and the introduction of worldly details in biblical stories.

Sketches, proofs and wood-engravings for The Parables

The show opens on 1 October, 15.00 hours in Museum Meermanno in The Hague.