Love and Pain: Hunt’s Private Life

Hunt's portraits are unidealized, psychologically intense, and startlingly modern. He rarely accepted portrait commissions, but lovers, friends, and family sat for him. Despite his bohemian lifestyle, the artist won the hand of Fanny Waugh, a woman from a middle-class family. After Fanny's death in 1866 following the birth of their son, Cyril, Hunt sought refuge with the Waughs. In 1868, for posterity and the later edification of his son, he painted a suite of four portraits: his self-portrait, a posthumous recollection of Fanny, his mother-in-law, and Fanny's younger sister, Edith. The last two are in this exhibition.