Discover Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry at Laing Art Gallery

Laus Veneris by Edward Coley Burne-Jones (c 1873-1875). Laing Art Gallery.

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October 2026

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This autumn and winter, visitors will have the chance to see the first large-scale exhibition to explore the connections between Pre-Raphaelite art and poetry

The Pre-Raphaelite circle included both artists and writers. The leading visual artists of Pre-Raphaelitism's first phase - John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti - bonded over their admiration of the Romantic poet John Keats. Along with medieval and early Renaissance art and a commitment to closely observing nature, literature was their key inspiration. Some of the poems they most admired told stories of love and peril in the medieval world. The artists translated these stories from word to image in a modern way, covering their canvases with elaborate detail.

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Aurelia (Fazio's Mistress) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (c 1863-1873). Photo/ Tate

Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1862). Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt (1867). Laing Art Gallery.

Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry at Laing Art Gallery features more than 100 masterpiece paintings, drawings and objects, some of which have never been displayed in Newcastle before. The artists on display include Hunt, Millais and Rossetti, as well as Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. The exhibition will be further enhanced by an emphasis on women artists including Elizabeth Siddall, Kate Bunce and Julia Margaret Cameron. The exhibition reveals how the artists were inspired by poets including Dante Aligheri, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Keats and Alfred Tennyson, and by writers from the Pre-Raphaelites’ own circle, such as Christina Rossetti. There are also examples of their art inspiring new poetry.

A range of fine and decorative art is included in the exhibition, providing visitors with the chance to see exquisite embroidery, metalwork, stained glass, tapestry, illuminated manuscripts and books, as well as paintings and works on paper. Together, the stunning array of loans reveal the creative exchange between art and poetry seen during one of the most exciting periods of British art and literature.

The Forest designed by William Morris, John Henry Dearle, and Philip Webb; made by Morris & Co (1887). © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Visitors to the exhibition will also be able to see two internationally important paintings from the Laing’s collections, Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil and Burne-Jones’ Laus Veneris, in the context of Pre-Raphaelitism as a literary, as well as an artistic, movement. They will be displayed alongside other works with the same poetic inspiration and alongside preparatory works for the larger masterpieces.

Key loans have travelled to the Laing Art Gallery from public and private collections across the UK. Lenders include Tate, V&A, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Guildhall Art Gallery, William Morris Gallery, Ashmolean Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum, The Higgins Bedford, the Society of Antiquaries of London, Tullie House, The Bodleian, and many more.