Yale University Art Gallery
March 28 – September 14, 2025
The Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art are pleased to present Romney: Brilliant Contrasts in Georgian England, an exhibition featuring works by the British portrait painter George Romney (1734–1802) in celebration of the Center’s reopening. Remembered today for his fashionable likenesses of wealthy patrons, Romney was rivaled in late eighteenth-century London only by the now better-known artists Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. His aspiration to be a history painter was never realized, but his many drawings serve as a testament to those greater ambitions. These swiftly executed sketches reveal a mastery of form, line,
and light, while his proficiency as a musician and early experience building musical instruments distinguish him among his polymath contemporaries. To fully explore the era’s subjects and sensibilities, paintings and drawings by Romney from both museums are shown alongside selections from the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments. Unveiling the contrasts in his artistic practice, the exhibition presents a forceful vision—one that has resonated with admirers through the centuries, from William Blake in Romney’s own time to the portraitist Kehinde Wiley today.
Exhibition Credits
. Organized by Brooke Krancer, Senior Curatorial Assistant, Yale Center for British Art, with the assistance of Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director, Yale Center for British Art, and Laurence Kanter, Chief Curator and the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art, Yale University Art Gallery.
Images
George Romney, A Conversation (The Artist's Brothers Peter and James Romney), 1766, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
George Romney (1734–1802), Study of a Clouded Moonlit Sky, undated, black wash on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
George Romney, Study of Two Figures, late 1770s, brown ink on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Art Gallery Collection, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Richardson Dilworth, B.A. 1938
George Romney, Portrait of A Man, between 1758 and 1760, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
George Romney, Howard Visiting a Prison, between 1790 and 1794, black and gray wash with black ink over graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Art Gallery Collection, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Richardson Dilworth, B.A. 1938
George Romney, John Flaxman Modeling the Bust of William Hayley, 1795 to 1796, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
