Current Temporary Exhibition
From 12 July until 31 October 2008 the Museum of St Albans will display some of the best FACES in our collections, mainly in the form of portraits from the last four hundred years. Many are local, some are striking, some famous, and others are there simply because they belong to ordinary people.
Engraved portrait of Beatrix de Cusance, Dutchess of Lorraine (1614 - 1663), after a painting by Van Dyke.
The face is the key to our identity. We instinctively recognise the slight differences between faces, so successfully that we can recognise people we’ve never met – think of Sir Winston Churchill, for example. But fashion can complicate matters by adding hairstyles, make-up, or spectacles to the ‘natural’ face – younger visitors can try this in the mirror.
Oil portrait of Ezra Dunham, owner of a local building firm and mayor of St Albans in 1911.
We look at how and why portraits recorded the face and passed it down the generations. Often it was to remind people of their ruler, as coins did. More and more people’s faces are recorded as time goes on, from oil paintings of the gentry to group photographs of workers, students, and families.
Group of Victorian domestic servants, c.1860.
Faces don’t stay ‘in neutral’ all day - they are the chief means to communicate our emotions. Expressions will be on display amongst the ‘expressionless’ faces thought desirable in earlier portraits.
Come and see them all – you can take a good look.
