Skip to main content
Exhibition

Robert Adam and Kedleston: The Making of a Neo-Classical Masterpiece

April 22–June 2, 1989

This exhibition, among the first ever to be devoted to a single country house, chronicles the designing of one of Great Britain's key monuments of Neoclassical architecture. Kedleston, the country seat in Derby, was largely designed by Britain's most distinguished eighteenth-century architect, Robert Adam (1728-1792). Kedleston exemplifies Robert Adam's range as architect, landscape designer, and decorator. The nearly 80 drawings and watercolors in the show were produced by Adam, his studio, and some of his predecessors in the Kedleston project. They represent plans, exterior and interior elevations, as well as projects for the decoration of the state-rooms, the landscaping of the grounds, and the decoration of the ceilings. Designs of individual furnishings are also included. The exhibition is especially relevant to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in view of its 1986 restoration of the period room originally belonging to Lansdowne House (London) also designed by Robert Adam in the early to mid-1760s.

Organizers

British National Trust
The Royal Oak Foundation
Circulated by American Architectural Foundation, Washington D.C.

Itinerary

Saint Louis Art Museum
Boston Athenaeum
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts
Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh
Archer M Huntington Art Gallery, Austin
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York
Octagon Museum, Washington, DC
Philadelphia Museum of Art


Main Building

Check out other exhibitions


View full calendar