Our panellists discuss the significance of the Bristol School of Artists and its continuing impact.

On show until 17 October 2021 in the Museum of Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux is the exhibition Absolutely Bizarre! Les drôles d’histoires de l’école de Bristol (1800-1840) (Strange tales from the Bristol School of Artists). It tells the remarkable story of a group of artists and their images of Bristol and its local surroundings.

The Bristol School was an informal group that was active in the early nineteenth century. The artists regularly went on sketching excursions together, including to the Avon Gorge and Leigh Woods. In the early days, most of the artists were amateurs but some developed successful professional careers and achieved national fame.

The Bristol School explored and revived a wide range of genres: paintings of city life seen through the prism of the social transformations of the time; landscapes, inventing a highly original form of idyllic and suburban views; and fantastic art, tackled with a hitherto unseen passion. From 1800 to 1840, Bristol was a breeding ground for high-value talent who, in the case of some, would earn a reputation as far as London, influencing the development of artistic creativity in the capital. Artists included Edward Bird (1772-1819), Francis Danby (1793-1861), Edward Villiers Rippingille (1798-1859), Samuel Colman (1780-1845), Samuel Jackson (1794-1869), Rolinda Sharples (1793-1838) – who enjoyed a brilliant career and, unusually for the times, earned a living from her craft – and William James Müller (1812-1845), who produced a gripping painting recording the riots that erupted in Bristol in 1831 (pictured above).

Sandra Buratti-Hasan, deputy director of Bordeaux Museum of Fine Arts, conservator of the 19th and 20th century Collections, joins Jenny Gaschke, Curator of European Art pre-1900, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, to talk about the Bristol School and its legacy.

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Image: William James Müller, Bristol Riots: The Burning of Queen Square: the Custom House, 1831, oil on paper. Credit: Bristol Culture, object number M4107.

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