The Masterpieces from World Museums in the Hermitage series
John Constable, Mill of Gillingham, Dorset and George Stubbs, Turf, with jockey up, at Newmarket

An exhibition in the Masterpieces from World Museums in the Hermitage series of two paintings by the outstanding British artists George Stubbs and John Constable opened on 21 June 2002. The exhibition (in Hall 288) has been timed to coincide with the reopening of the halls of English art in the Hermitage after restoration. The Yale Center for the Study of British Art in New Haven presents Turf, with jockey up by Stubbs and Mill of Gillingham by Constable. The choice of these particular works is no coincidence: works by these two great artists are lacking in the Hermitage collection. Stubbs's celebrated canvas Turf, with jockey up (circa 1765) belongs to the genre known as sporting painting, a specifically English phenomenon. George Stubbs (1724-1806) was the leading figure in this field of art in 18th-century Britain. He painted Turf, with jockey up for Frederick St John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke, one of his most important patrons and customers. The painting is typical of the artist's work in the 1760s and 1770s. Like Stubbs, John Constable (1776-1806) learnt his art chiefly from nature. The artist discovered early in his career the significance of the study from real life. Mill of Gillingham, Dorset (1825-26), like many other finished works by Constable, retains the freshness and immediacy of a study. The artist informed his friend, the clergyman Fisher, that he had painted his finest picture — of the mill at Gillingham. Untiring observation of colour relations and a scientific approach to understanding the nature of sunlight transformed the colour scheme of Constable's works and influenced European art as a whole.

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At the opening of the exhibition

State Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky, ms. Jayne Wrightsman (USA) and Lord Jacob Rothschild (UK) opening the exhibition