The British Mural Painting research group is a group of academics, museum and heritage professionals with a research interest in the work of British mural painters, and continental artists working in Britain, employed to decorate the palaces and country houses of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This subject remains poorly documented and misunderstood and the grand baroque schemes of artists such as Verrio, Laguerre and Thornhill have often been neglected, covered up or destroyed completely.
Since 2016, the group has organised visits to surviving mural locations, and hosted workshops to discuss the history, meaning, preservation and interpretation of murals, aiming to increase scholarly and popular awareness of this neglected genre in British art. The British Murals website acts as a research hub, publishing news of relevant seminars and conferences, and offering researchers a chance to ask questions and posit new ideas.
The research group is led by Brett Dolman (Curator (Collections), Historic Royal Palaces), Dr Lydia Hamlett (Academic Director of History of Art, Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge) and Dr Richard Johns (Lecturer in the History of Art and Director of the British Art Research School, University of York).
