Hoi Polloi : Exhibition

The Brown Collection is pleased to present Hoi Polloi, an exhibition curated by British artist Glenn Brown. Hoi Polloi is derived from the Greek for 'the people', or the many, most often used as an insult for the "great unwashed masses". The exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures from the sixteenth century to the present. It explores how artists have represented, resisted or reimagined the ordinary man through the lens of the spiritual. From the grandeur of the Baroque line to fractured modern visions, Hoi Polloi considers the human form as both spectacle and subject, inviting viewers to encounter 'the people' in ways that are at once striking, intimate and unsettling.

Alongside major figures such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Bernardo Strozzi, Austin Osman Spare, Anya Gallaccio and Gillian Wearing, the exhibition highlights underrepresented artists, including Gertrude Hermes, Carmen Dionyse, Ann Churchill, Annie French, and Boris Petrovich Sveshnikov.

By combining historic and contemporary material, Hoi Polloi celebrates the vitality of artistic mark-making in its many forms. From Baroque brushstrokes to the psychological and spiritual intensity of modern drawing, the exhibition affirms the ecstatic mark as a force that transcends time, shaping how artists give form to people or the masses and their own experiences. 

Artists on show

• Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558–1617)
• Aegidius Sadeler II (Flemish, 1570–1629)
• Cornelis van Haarlem (Dutch, 1562–1638)
• Jan Harmensz Muller (Dutch, 1571–1628)
• Bernardo Strozzi (Italian, 1581–1644)
• Juan de Mesa (Spanish, 1583–1627
• Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682–1754)
• Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696–1770)
• Gilles Demarteau (Flemish, 1722–1776)
• Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727–1804)
• Ubaldo Gandolfi (Italian, 1728–1781)
• Francesco Corneliani (Italian, 1740–1815)
• Annie French (Scottish, 1872–1965)
• Thomas William Wilkinson (British, 1875–1950)
• Austin Osman Spare (British, 1886–1956)
• Pavel Tchelitchew (Russian-born, later American, 1898–1957)
• Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts (British, 1898–1966)
• Gertrude Hermes (British, 1901–1983)
• Stanley William Hayter (British, 1901–1988)
• Anna Zinkeisen (Scottish, 1901–1976)
• Hans Bellmer (German, 1902–1975)
• Roger Hilton (British, 1911–1975)
• Ib Koford-Larsen (Danish, 1921-2003)
• Carmen Dionyse (Belgian, 1921–2013)
• Boris Petrovich Sveshnikov (Russian, 1927–1998)
• Gaetano Pesce (Italian, 1939-2024)
• Ann Churchill (British, born 1944)
• Anya Gallaccio (British, born 1963)
• Gillian Wearing (British, born 1963)
• Glenn Brown (British, born 1966)