British Council − UK at the Venice Biennale

This was the first year of the Biennale and before the aquisition of the British pavilion in 1909, the work of British artists was shown in the English room in the Central Pavilion.

Although contemporary visitors will be most familiar with the series of one-artist exhibitions in the British pavilion at recent Venice Biennales, the very early Biennales were based on different principles.

The four British members of the Committee of Patronage selected more than twenty British artists to exhibit at the first Venice Biennale. The British painters that Antonio Fradeletto, Secretary General of the Venice Biennale, and Italian art connoisseurs in general most wanted to see were the Pre-Raphaelites. These artists had received a far greater amount of coverage in the Italian press than any others in Europe, so much so that interest in Pre-Raphaelitism transcended the regional boundaries which traditionally dominated Italian art in the second half of the 19th century.

International Committee of Patronage included Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Sir Frederic Leighton and Sir John Everett Millais from England.

Whistler's Symphony in White, No.2: The Little White Girl won the Premio Internazionale del Comune di Murano.

(All the artists listed here, including Whistler, were exhibited together in the same room, Sala A.)