Benjamin West: From History Painting to Painting History

Benjamin West (1738 – 1820), Penn's Treaty with the Indians, Oil on Canvas, 75 1/2 x 107 3/4 in. (191.8 x 273.7 cm.) 1878.1.10, Gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison, Jr. Collection)

Benjamin West's painting, The Death of General Wolfe, was the popular hit of the 1771 Royal Academy Exhibition and as an engraving became one of the most widely celebrated images of the eighteenth century. By using the venerated forms of the Virgin Mary mourning the dead Christ to convey the profound nature and excitement of a recent news event, West triumphantly proclaimed the value of the contemporary in what can be seen as a major step in the development of a modern attitude.  

For centuries the most exalted form of painting was istoria or history painting whose subjects were drawn from the Bible, mythology and the ancient world. West turned the old artistic order upside down foreshadowing Michel Foucault's dictum that the essence of modernity was about "the will to 'heroize' the present." 

In the first major study of West for a generation, Loyd Grossman explores the causes and consequences of West's achievement, relating how Wolfe was part of a wider revolution in historical consciousness that turned David Hume and Edward Gibbon into some of the best selling authors of the century. And West's life story which took him from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the state rooms of Buckingham Palace is as thrilling as any novel.

Loyd Grossman was born in Boston in 1950 and graduated from Boston University (BA cum laude), the London School of Economics (MSc Econ) and Magdalene College, Cambridge (PhD, MPhil).

After starting a career in journalism with Harpers & Queen and the Sunday Times, Grossman was diverted into television where as a writer, presenter or deviser he was involved in a wide range of programmes including Through the Keyhole, MasterChef, Behind the Headlines, History of British Sculpture, Loyd on Location and Build Britain. Grossman also wrote and presented a series, Composers at Home, for Radio 3.

His lifelong interest in history, the arts and heritage has involved him in a number of organisations. He is a former Commissioner of the Museums and Galleries Commission, a former Commissioner of English Heritage (where he was Chairman of the Museums Advisory Committee and the Blue Plaques Panel), a former Commissioner of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, a founding member of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, past Chairman of National Museums Liverpool and of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, and past President of the British Association of Friends of Museums. He founded the 24 Hour Museum (now Culture 24) and was its Chairman until 2005. 

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Registration is required and includes admission to the lecture as well as PAFA's galleries for the evening.

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