This series of thematic presentations by the YCBA Student Guides will reframe selected works from the museum's collection.
The YCBA Student Guides have produced a series of video presentations titled “Reframed.” The videos offer the guides’ insights about selected works from the museum’s collection, sharing their perspectives as undergraduate students and drawing from their training and experience leading tours of the collection at the Yale Center for British Art and the Yale University Art Gallery while the exhibition In a New Light was on view.
Spring 2024
Aengus Cox, Morse College ’26: “More than Meets the Eye: Imagination and Recollection in British Art”
Aengus explores how artists subvert the viewer's expectations in three works by Ford Madox Brown—The English Boy (1860), The Irish Girl (1860), and Work (1863)—and Joseph Wright of Derby's The Blacksmith's Shop (1771).
Taehyeong Ko, Timothy Dwight College ’26: “Francis Danby: A Reflection of Life’s Misgivings”
In this reflection on the life of Irish painter Francis Danby, Taehyeong considers how circumstances impact the artist's work.
Cleo Maloney, Silliman College ’25: “William Blake’s Visualizations of Eighteenth-Century London in ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’”
Cleo examines William Blake's illuminated poetry to see how the radical poet and printmaker represents industrialization, the state of European politics, and the British empire contained within the city of London.
Michelle Medawar, Jonathan Edwards College ’24: “Visit the Empire: Canada, Wilderness, and the British Imagination”
Michelle's tour analyzes how Canada was framed in the British imagination as “wilderness” in service of empire-building by looking at prints from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.
Collin Robinson, Timothy Dwight College ’24: “Uncovering Queer Narratives in Late Nineteenth-Century and Early Twentieth-Century Britain”
Collin focuses on the works of Frederic Leighton and Henry Scott Tuke to challenge traditional narratives of prudishness associated with the era and unveil a vibrant tapestry of sexual expression, artistic rebellion, and societal norms.
Hailey Talbert, Grace Hopper College ’27: “Chasing Tides: The Practice of Plein-Air Painting”
Hailey compares and contrasts the plein-air painting practices of John Constable and Winslow Homer.
Daniela Woldenberg, Pauli Murray College ’27: “What’s in a Look?: Exploring Glances and Relationships in British Portraiture”
Daniela discusses Francis Bacon's Study of a Head (1952), Ford Madox Brown's The Irish Girl (1860), William Hogarth's The Beggar's Opera (1729), and Benjamin West's The Artist and His Family (ca. 1772), unpacking the figures and the story behind each piece.
Fall 2024
Daniel Carrillo, Berkeley College ’26: “British Art, British Artists?”
Daniel examines how different identities and styles converge to create an interpretation of British art.
Keerthana Chari, Berkeley College ’25: “Bridges: Connecting Art, Culture, Time, Metaphor, and Engineering in the United Kingdom”
Keerthana explores a wide range of themes in British paintings, using bridges as a focal point.
Koby Chen, Silliman College College ’26: “Red Letter Days: An Exploration of Red Semiotics in the YCBA Collection”
Koby explores the prevalence of the color red and its significance within several artworks from the museum’s collection.
Zeyna Malik and Esme Talenfeld, both Jonathan Edwards College ’27: “Prints from India in the Early Eighteenth Century: Drawing the Landscape, Architecture, and Customs”
Zeyna and Esme discuss four works of art created in the late 1700s that are based on Indian architecture, customs, landscapes, and people.
Isaidy Medina, Silliman College ’25: “Power and Visibility: Exploring Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Femininity in British Art”
Isaidy analyzes how depictions of women’s roles in early modern and Victorian Britain defy social expectations and comment on ideal beauty, femininity, and the behavior of women in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.
Darcy Ovalles, Pauli Murray College ’25: “Beyond the Horizon: British Maps of the New World”
Darcy challenges map-making conventions by contextualizing colonial maps within broader historical and social frameworks, ultimately revealing the inherent politics and complexities embedded in cartographic representations.
Agnes Sjöblad, Branford College ’26: “Where Do We Locate the Value in Great British Art?”
Agnes explores the shifting frame of reference for determining the value of art through a close examination of works by four prominent British artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: John Constable, John Everett Millais, George Stubbs, and James McNeill Whistler.
Bridgitte Thao, Berkeley ’27: “Re-Orienting the Empire”
Bridgitte investigates the development of British Orientalism from the seventeenth century onwards, reviewing works by John Bratby, Tilly Kettle, and John Frederick Lewis.
Rebecca Wasserman, Pauli Murray College ’26: “Unbraiding a History: Depictions and Uses of Hair in British Art from the Sixteenth to Twenty-First Centuries”
Rebecca offers a glimpse into specific representations of hair, from Queen Elizabeth I to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, through selected works from the museum’s collection.
