John Ruskin and his "Frenemies"

Huntington Art Gallery, Works on Paper Room

Curated by Melinda McCurdy

This exhibition brings together 16 works by artists whose careers have either been lauded or criticized by John Ruskin, the Victorian writer and polymath. While he had steadfast friends and several outright enemies, Ruskin's relationships with many artists were more complicated than that, often combining a level of support with a great deal of criticism. We might go so far as to call them "frenemies." The selection, drawn from The Huntington's permanent collection, includes works by Turner, members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Edward Burne-Jones, the great illustrator Kate Greenaway, Whistler, and Ruskin himself.