Over the course of the long 18th century, many of England’s grandest country houses became known for displaying noteworthy architecture and design, large collections of sculptures and paintings, and expansive landscape gardens and parks. Although these houses continued to function as residences and spaces of elite retreat, they had powerful public identities. Increasingly accessible to tourists, and extensively described by travel writers, they began to be celebrated as sites of great importance to national culture. Touring and Publicizing England's Country Houses in the Long Eighteenth Century examines how these identities emerged, repositioning the importance of country houses in 18th-century Britain and exploring what it took to turn them into tourist attractions. Drawing on travel books, guidebooks, and dozens of tourists’ diaries and letters, it explores what it meant to tour country houses such as Blenheim Palace, Chatsworth, Wilton, Kedleston and Burghley in the tumultuous 1700s. It also questions the legacies of these early tourists: both as a critical cultural practice in the 18th century, and an extraordinary and controversial influence in British culture today, country-house tourism is a topic of rich debate for students, scholars and patrons of the heritage sector.

Gathie Falk: Revelations, published on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition curated by Sarah Milroy, investigates the career of a legendary Canadian artist. Now in her nineties, Gathie Falk was born in 1928 in Brandon, Manitoba, settling finally in Vancouver, where she established herself as one of Canada's most visionary and experimental artists. Flying horses, rows of potted conifers festooned with blossoms and ribbons, floating cabbages, piles of glossy apples, gentlemen's brogues presented in reliquary style, expanses of water, or burgeoning flower beds exploding with color-these have been the manifestations of Falk's rampant imagination as she has explored the disciplines of painting, ceramic, performance art and installation over the span of a half century. In all her works, effulgence and order are held in a dynamic tension as she works through her generative themes and variations. A trailblazer on all fronts, she has brought a rich sensibility to bear on her observations of the everyday, perceptions often tinged with the surreal and the uncanny. From her fruit piles to the landmark performances of her early career, to her extended pursuit of themes with variations in her painting practice -expanses of water dazzling with light, riotous flower borders set against cement sidewalks, night skies pierced by starlight or obscured by clouds-she finds the wondrous in the routine world around her, pursuing her work with a modesty and diligence that reflects her Russian Mennonite heritage. The publication includes an introduction by McMichael Chief Curator Sarah Milroy, lead essay by Vancouver curator and writer Daina Augaitis (who examines her performance and installation works in a national and international context), and a host of other artists and writers, rising to the occasion of this career-spanning survey. This catalogue summarizes an extraordinary career, with full page images of her artworks and rarely seen archival photos of the artist's studio, performance works, and Falk herself. For more than sixty years, Falk has generated work of extraordinary thematic integrity and material invention. This publication will illuminate those connections across disciplines, while also tracing the artist's journey from youth to old age-from the lushness of the fruit piles, with their sensuous surfaces and dazzling colors, to the sepulchral hush of the night skies. Hers has been an extraordinary voyage, and we look forward to saluting her in her 94th year.

Travel and the British country house explores the ways in which travel by owners, visitors and material objects shaped country houses during the long eighteenth century. It provides a richer and more nuanced understanding of this relationship, and how it varied according to the identity of the traveller and the geography of their journeys. The essays explore how travel on the Grand Tour, and further afield, formed an inspiration to build or remodel houses and gardens; the importance of country house visiting in shaping taste amongst British and European elites, and the practical aspects of travel, including the expenditure involved. Suitable for a scholarly audience, including postgraduate and undergraduate students, but also accessible to the general reader, Travel and the British country house offers a series of fascinating studies of the country house that serve to animate the country house with flows of people, goods and ideas. -- .

Over the course of the long 18th century, many of England's grandest country houses became known for displaying noteworthy architecture and design, large collections of sculptures and paintings, and expansive landscape gardens and parks. Although these houses continued to function as residences and spaces of elite retreat, they had powerful public identities: increasingly accessible to tourists and extensively described by travel writers, they began to be celebrated as sites of great importance to national culture. This book examines how these identities emerged, repositioning the importance of country houses in 18th-century Britain and exploring what it took to turn them into tourist attractions. Drawing on travel books, guidebooks, and dozens of tourists' diaries and letters, it explores what it meant to tour country houses such as Blenheim Palace, Chatsworth, Wilton, Kedleston and Burghley in the tumultuous 1700s. It also questions the legacies of these early tourists: both as a critical cultural practice in the 18th century and an extraordinary and controversial influence in British culture today, country-house tourism is a phenomenon that demands investigation.