Samuel Palmer Revisited

Varied and deliberately diverse, this group of essays provides a reassessment of the life and work of the popular nineteenth-century artist Samuel Palmer. While scholarly publications have been published recently which reassess Palmer's achievement, those works primarily consider the artist in isolation. This volume examines his work in relation to a wider art world and analyses areas of his life and output that have until now received little attention, reinstating the study of Palmer's work within broader debates about landscape and cultural history. In Samuel Palmer Revisited, the contributors provide a fresh perspective on Palmer's work, its context and its influence.

Contents: Preface, Sam Smiles and Simon Shaw-Miller; Introduction: the perception and study of Palmer’s work in the later 20th and early 21st centuries, William Vaughan; Samuel Palmer's Houndsditch days, William Vaughan; Ancients and moderns: Samuel Palmer and the 'progress of watercolours', 1822-1833, Greg Smith; 'This very unstudent-like student': Palmer and the education of the artist, Martin Postle; 'Dreaming of the marriage of the land and sea': Samuel Palmer and the coast, Christiana Payne; Samuel Palmer: poetry, printmaking and illustration, Paul Goldman; From the valley of vision to the M25: Samuel Palmer and modern culture, Sam Smiles; Palmer and the dark pastoral in English music of the 20th century, Simon Shaw-Miller; Bibliography; Index.

Simon Shaw-Miller is Professor of History of Art and Music, Birkbeck College, University of London and Honorary Research Fellow, Royal Academy of Music, London, UK. Sam Smiles is Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Plymouth, UK