24April 2019

Foreign Artists in London 1520 - 1677: The Artists who changed the Course of British Art

Leslie Primo

Leslie Primo is a graduate with a degree in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck, University College, London. During his studies he specialised in early Medieval and Renaissance studies, including, Italian Renaissance Drawing, Art and Architecture in Europe 1250-1400 Art and Architecture in Europe 1400-1500, Medici and Patronage, Narrative Painting in the Age of Giotto, the work of Peter Paul Rubens focusing on his paintings of the Judgement of Paris, and Greek Myth in paintings.

Leslie Primo has worked at the National Gallery, London since 2000, The Arts Society since 2009, and has also taught outreach courses at the Courtauld Institute. Also in this period Leslie Primo also taught a variety of art history courses as a visiting lecturer at Reading University in 2005 and 2007.

Leslie Primo currently lectures at the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and teaches a variety of art history courses at Imperial College, London – South Kensington campus, the City Literary, Covent Garden, London and Bishopsgate Institute, Liverpool Street, London, including: An art history survey course called Styles in Art (spanning art from Byzantium to Victorian painting), The Mirror of Nature (looking at 17th Century art and culture), The Renaissance and Beyond, Introduction to the National Galley and Introduction to the National Portrait Gallery, Introduction to Western European Art and many more

This lecturer is so popular, we had to book him two years in advance!

Why were foreigner painters preferred by the aristocracy in London to native-born English painters, why did foreigners come in the first place, what was their motivation, and what was the impact of foreigners in London on English art and art practise? The lecture will look at the various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England. It will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Gerrit van Honthorst, Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout, Isaac Oliver, Paulus van Somer, van Dyck, Peter Lely, and Rubens. This lecture will look at how these artists influenced the British School of painting and assess their legacy.