Medardo Rosso’s London Networks

This lecture will focus on transnationalism in the London art world between 1880 and 1918 through an examination of Medardo Rosso’s experience there. Among the questions I plan to discuss are: why would a foreign artist like Rosso have been eager to penetrate the London art market? What was London’s position in the European/International art scene during these years? What avenues did Rosso have available to him and what are some of the reasons for his choices? In my lecture, I will position Rosso within the development of British interest in French Impressionism, London collectors of foreign art such as the Mond family, British journalists who wrote about Rosso such as Frances Keyzer and and Lady Colin Campbell, foreign dealers who opened branches in London such as Eugene Cremetti, institutional acquisitions of foreign art such as the Victoria and Albert, and the position of foreigners such as Rosso at the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers. Finally, I will comment on Rosso’s British legacy today, through the exhibition I co-curated with Julia Peyton-Jones at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in London in 2018 and the Courtauld Institute Study Day with Phylida Barlow, Antony Gormley and Richard Deacon.