Yale Center For British Art To Shows First Views Of America

NEW HAVEN — In an complementary exhibition to “The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting, 1830–1925” (February 8–April 27), “A New World: England’s First View of America” will be on view March 6 to June 1 at the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA).

John White, Elizabethan gentleman and artist, was the person most responsible for shaping England’s first view of America and its inhabitants. In 1585 White sailed with the earliest expedition to Virginia (on the coast of present-day North Carolina) and produced a series of extraordinary watercolors that documented his travels. These drawings of the complex and sophisticated culture of the region’s Algonquian Indians and local flora and fauna constitute the only surviving original visual record of England’s first settlement venture in North America.

The YCBA exhibition will feature nearly 100 works, including all of White’s drawings of the Algonquian Indians, his maps and charts, watercolors of the Inuit and of North American and West Indian plants and animals, depictions of ancient Britons, and associated works by his contemporaries.

It will also include rare maps, manuscripts and printed works related to early European voyages of exploration to America from Yale collections and elsewhere, including the Pierpont Morgan Library, the New York Public Library and a number of private collections.

English interest in establishing a settlement in North America emerged toward the end of the 16th Century. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh received a patent from Queen Elizabeth I to finance and settle a colony in Virginia. Raleigh hoped to find minerals and other commodities, to establish a safe harbor from which to harass Spanish ships, and to establish a permanent foothold for England in America. He sent an expedition in 1585 that included White and the renowned scientist Thomas Harriot. Together they produced drawings, maps, and written records of what they found

The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to catch a glimpse of the land and people of North America at the moment when Europeans encountered the continent’s native inhabitants for the first time.

“A New World” has been organized by YCBA, which houses the complete collection of White’s work. An illustrated catalog, published by the University of North Carolina Press, reproduces in full the British Museum’s collection of White’s watercolors.

The Yale Center for British Art is at 1080 Chapel Street. For additional information, call 203-432-2800 or visit www.ycba.yale.edu.