In August of 2021 the Delaware Art Museum completed a five-year reinterpretation and reinstallation plan for the collection of Pre-Raphaelite art assembled by turn of the century Quaker industrialist Samuel Bancroft. With input from extensive community discussions and including the most recent developments in British art historical scholarship the installation offers an expanded view of the work of these radical Victorians. Several new acquisitions contribute to a retelling connecting past to present and illuminating societal and cultural concerns still under discussion today. Join collection curator Margaretta Frederick to learn more about the newly opened installation. Frederick will also share plans for an exhibition of the work of husband and wife potter and novelist William de Morgan and pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn Pickering De Morgan opening in fall 2022.

Margaretta S Frederick is the Annette Woolard-Provine Curator of the Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art at the Delaware Art Museum. Dr. Frederick received her PhD from Bryn Mawr College in 1996, with a specialization in British19th century art. Dr. Frederick has been integral to the Museum’s Bancroft Collection for over twenty years, focusing on women within the Pre-Raphaelite circle. She is responsible for the current reinterpretation and reinstallation of the collection, which opened in late summer 2021. Other projects underway include an exhibition of the work of Evelyn and William De Morgan (fall 2022) with an accompanying book of essays (published by Yale University Press). She is also co-editing the collected letters of May Morris with Anna Mason.

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Photo credits

John Everett Millais (1829-1896), The Waterfall, 1853. Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935 (1935-53).

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), La Bella Mano, 1874-5. Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial,1935 (1935-25).