Pax Mongolica 1210–1350

5 Jan 2016 to 1 May 2016
http://www.ashmolean.org

Genghis Khan established the Mongol Empire in 1206. It rapidly expanded during the following decades, continuously invading new territories.  By the end of the 13th century, the vast Empire covered a large part of Eurasia, stretching from the Korean peninsula to Central Europe. These coins reflect the great diversity of peoples living under Mongolian rule and their different cultures

Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice

15 October 2015 to 10 January 2016
http://www.ashmolean.org

Featuring a hundred drawings from the Uffizi, the Ashmolean, and Christ Church, Oxford, Titian to Canaletto is a groundbreaking exhibition based on new research.

Venetian art has long been associated with brilliant colours and free brushwork, but drawing has been written out of its history. This exhibition highlights the significance of drawing as a concept and as a practice in the artistic life of Venice. It reveals the variety of aims, purposes and techniques in drawing from Bellini, Titian and Tintoretto to Tiepolo and Canaletto. Many of the works on loan to the exhibition have not been seen since the 1950s.

Titian to Canaletto presents new research which traces continuities in Venetian drawing over three centuries, from around 1500 down to the foundation of the first academy of art in Venice in 1750.

William Blake: Apprentice and Master

www.ashmolean.org
4th December 2014 - 1st March 2015

A major exhibition on the work of William Blake (1757–1827), printmaker, painter and revolutionary poet of the prophetic books. The exhibition also explores how Blake looked back to the master artist-printmakers at the beginnings of the Renaissance, and how he inspired and guided the young artist-printmakers who gathered around him in the last years of his life, Samuel Palmer, George Richmond and Edward Calvert.

Discovering Tutankhamun

24 Jul 2014 to 2 Nov 2014
http://www.ashmolean.org

‘At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley a magnificent tomb with seals intact…’
Howard Carter’s telegram to Lord Carnarvon on 5 November 1922

Our summer exhibition Discovering Tutankhamun will tell the story of one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Find out more about the hunt for the tomb and the thrill of its discovery, and see Howard Carter’s original records, drawings and photographs.

Kevin Coates: A Bestiary of Jewels

17 Jan to 30 Mar 2014
http://www.ashmolean.org/ 

Dr. Kevin Coates is a multi-talented artist-goldsmith and sculptor who creates virtuoso jewels in gold, precious stones, shells, and other exotic materials. His work is both exquisite and fantastical. Following his successful solo exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London in 2011, Coates has been working on an ambitious new project, “A Bestiary of Jewels”, pairing a creature with its significant human, with the jewel mounted in a bestiary ‘page’, in a poetic elaboration on the theme of the medieval encyclopaedias known as Bestiaries.

Francis Bacon / Henry Moore: Flesh and Bones

http://www.ashmolean.org/
12th September 2013 - 5th January 2014 Add to calendar

This major exhibition will feature 20 works by each artist, carefully selected to bring out similarities and differences.

Despite working in different media, Bacon and Moore were exhibited together from end of the Second World War into the 1960s. This new exhibition aims to bring a fresh perspective to Francis Bacon and Henry Moore highlighting the important influences and experiences which they shared and exploring specific themes in their work.

Stradivarius

13.06 - 11.08.2013
www.ashmolean.org

Antonio Stradivari (c.1644–1737) – or Stradivarius as he is usually known – is the only maker of musical instruments whose name ranks alongside those of the great composers. For the first time will twenty of his instruments, from guitar to cello to violin, be on display together in the UK.
While the details of his life are not as familiar as those of Vivaldi or Mozart, his name succeeds in evoking a creative genius in the popular imagination. The Ashmolean’s summer 2013 exhibition will feature twenty of the world’s most important musical instruments, some of which have never been shown in public, on loan from international collections: from the early Silvestre violin of 1666, to the Fountaine violino piccolo, the Boissier-Sarasate of 1713, to his later violins of the 1730s. It will also show a recreation of Stradivarius’s workshop where visitors will be able to follow the creation of a violin from a log of spruce through to the finished instrument.