22 March – 13 July 2014
A collaboration between the V&A and the Bard Graduate Center examines the life and work of William Kent (1685-1748), the leading architect and designer of early Georgian Britain. The exhibition celebrates Kent’s oeuvre over four decades (1709-48) when Britain defined itself as a new nation with the act of union with Scotland (1707) and the accession of a new Hanoverian Royal Family (1714).
Kent was a polymath, turning his hand to painting, sculpture, architecture, interior decoration, furniture, metalwork, book illustration, theatrical design, costume and landscape gardening. The exhibition demonstrates how Kent’s artistic ingenuity and inventiveness led him to play a dominant role in defining British taste and a new design aesthetic for the period.
