AN ART gallery owner is predicting “massive” interest in a new exhibition at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum focusing on the work of visionary 19th-century poet and artist William Blake.

Art lovers visiting the attraction in Beaumont Street, Oxford, will get an impression of the working methods of the artist described as ‘Albion’s strangest genius’.

Blake has been a major influence on popular culture, including music and film, and Aidan Meller, who runs art galleries in Broad Street and High Street, said the new show at the museum would attract thousands of visitors.

He added: “I think the new Blake exhibition will provoke massive interest and I’m really looking forward to it.

“Blake was working in a period of turmoil when modern ways were emerging and old ways were dying out – his illustrations are incredible.

“We are now trying to source some of his illustrations so that we can sell them when the exhibition is on.”

Fantasy author Philip Pullman, who lives near Oxford, is president of the Blake Society.

Oxford Mail:

Aidan Meller

He said: “It’s very exciting to see this exhibition devoted to the work of Albion’s strangest genius.

"His power, his tenderness, his wit, his graphic line are like no-one else’s and it’s good to remind people every so often about his colossal imagination and his moral vision, which are just as potent now after 200 years as they were when he brought them into the world.”

William Blake lived from 1757 to 1827 and is best known as a poet who words to the anthem Jerusalem, but he is also acclaimed for his distinctive artwork.

Next month, the Ashmolean will recreate the artist and writer’s studio at No.13 Hercules Building, Hercules Road, Lambeth, London, which was knocked down following a fire in 1918.

Experts are recreating the space following the discovery of ground-floor plans in London’s Guildhall Library, as well as descriptions of visits to the studio by his contemporaries.

Blake’s illustrations were also shown at an exhibition at the Ashmolean in 1972.

  • The exhibition William Blake: Apprentice & Master runs from December 4 until March 1 next year. Tickets cost £9 (£7 concessions) and children under 12 get in free. For more information, see ashmolean.org

Influential figure

William Blake, a poet and artist, was regarded as a seminal figure of the Romantic Age

  • Born in 1757 in London, he began writing at an early age and claimed to have had his first vision at the age of 10, of a tree full of angels
  • He studied engraving and enjoyed Gothic art, which he included in his own works
  • As a poet, artist and visionary he was misunderstood throughout much of his life, but has been very influential since his death
  • After Blake’s brother Robert died from tuberculoisis aged 24, in 1787, he developed a new method of working, ‘illuminated printing’
  • His work has influenced movies including V for Vendetta and Blade Runner, bands including U2 and Led Zeppelin, and writers Thomas Harris – creator of Hannibal Lector – and Oxford don CS Lewis, author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.