Matthew Winterbottom discusses the major exhibition he recently curated: ‘Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion, and Design’, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (21 September 2023-18 February 2024).

“As Britain’s industrial revolution gained pace, new scientific breakthroughs allowed the Victorians to become increasingly revolutionary in their use of colour, with new hues greeted with both excitement and suspicion. This explosion of colour was embraced by artists, designers and many others in all walks of 19th-century life. The exhibition includes fashion pieces – from Queen Victoria’s monotone mourning dress to the most daringly vivid clothing and accessories – and works by artists including Millais, Ruskin, Rossetti, Turner and Whistler, as well as objects from around the world”.

Matthew Winterbottom is Curator of Nineteenth-Century Decorative Arts, in the Department of Western Art, at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford. Previously, Matthew worked at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in the Metalwork then Furniture & Woodwork Departments, and at the Holburne Museum in Bath.