News | October 26, 2023

Major William Blake Exhibition Features His America a Prophecy

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Plate 2 from America a Prophecy, Copy M, printed about 1807 William Blake. Relief etching printed in blue with pen and ink and watercolor. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven Paul Mellon Collection.

The J. Paul Getty Museum's new exhibition William Blake: Visionary features over 100 striking works by English printmaker, painter, and poet, William Blake. On view at the Getty Center through January 14, 2024, this is the first major international loan exhibition of Blake’s work on the West Coast.

The exhibition displays one of the finest colored copies of Blake’s illuminated book, America a Prophecy, which retells the story of the American Revolution. Views of the American Revolution differed greatly among the British: some considered it a rebellion while others, including Blake, deemed it justified opposition to tyrannical rule—a viewpoint that would have resulted in persecution if not for his use of invented characters.

Now celebrated as one of the greatest artists of the early Romantic era, Blake was largely unrecognized during his lifetime and lived mostly in obscurity. William Blake: Visionary follows his journey as an artist, from his early years as a commercial printmaker to the legendary creator we know today, exploring Blake’s wild imagination through some of the acclaimed works that have perplexed and delighted audiences for over 200 years.

“Our long-awaited William Blake exhibition was originally slated to open in 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are excited to finally showcase an iconic selection of Blake’s otherworldly creations assembled in this exhibition for our visitors,” said Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “Radical, fantastical, and unforgettable, Blake’s works will make visitors feel they have been transported to another world.”

The exhibition begins by illustrating how Blake first honed his technical skills as a printmaker in London, his main source of income throughout his career. Eager to establish himself as an independent artist, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Arts in 1779 but never achieved success. While audiences preferred literal renderings of beloved texts, Blake opted for more imaginative interpretations of his sources. And, while oil painting was considered the highest art, Blake chose to work in tempera, watercolor, and through printmaking.

In the 1790s, Blake started receiving commissions to design and engrave some of his own compositions. In 1793, he proudly claimed to have invented a new printmaking technique of relief etching which allowed him to effectively combine poetry and image together on a single page. He began exclusively publishing his own illustrated poetry, which he referred to as “illuminated books.” Pages from his most celebrated illuminated books, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, are featured in the exhibition, including one of his best-known verses, The Tyger.

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Title Page from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Plate 1 of Copy E, printed by 1806 William Blake. Relief etching with watercolor. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino.

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Laughing Song, from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Plate 9 of Copy E, printed by 1806 William Blake. Relief etching with watercolor. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino.

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Self-Portrait, 1802–1804 William Blake. Graphite and gray wash with white heightening Collection of Robert N. Essick

Blake often represented figures from the Bible and classical Greek and Roman mythology, along with allegorical characters from his own imagined universe that personified a myriad of emotions, behaviors, and concepts. A few invented figures that appear in his work include “Albion,” who generally represents England and fallen humankind, “Urizen” who often depicts tyranny and oppression, and “Orc” who embodies defiance and revolution.

“Blake employed innovative graphic techniques to combine poetry and images, often using his own highly allegorical characters to respond to the historic events of the time in a veiled manner,” said Edina Adam, assistant curator at the Getty Museum. “By employing his mythology to comment on revolutions, wars, political and economic repression, and social unrest, he was cleverly able to avoid persecution.”

Later in his career, Blake enjoyed the patronage of a small group of well-off, educated individuals. His most significant patron was the civil servant Thomas Butts, who allowed Blake to retain his artistic freedom while producing over 80 Biblical watercolors for him. Possibly intended as illustrated inserts for a large Bible, five pages from this series are featured in the exhibition, including The Death of a Virgin.

While the Bible was an endless source of inspiration for Blake’s work, his views on religion were complex and at times contradictory. He disagreed with the idea of God as an omnipotent patriarch or vengeful deity. Rather, he identified as a spiritualist and claimed to have experienced frequent visions. Blake’s best-known tempera work, The Ghost of a Flea, is the result of a séance-like vision. It has not been exhibited outside the U.K. for decades and will appear in the Getty exhibition alongside a key preliminary sketch.

“William Blake’s deep spirituality, questioning nature, and vivid imagination particularly resonated with poets and musicians of the 1960s and 1970s such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Bob Dylan. Yet Blake’s work continues to pop up in many unexpected places too, and it feels eternally relevant,” said Julian Brooks, senior curator of drawings at the Getty Museum. “We hope visitors who enter his visionary world through this exhibition will leave feeling empowered to explore the boundaries of what can be imagined.”