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Topics

Children

  • Summary
James Jewill Hill Junior
Image credit: Penlee House Gallery & Museum

James Jewill Hill Junior

Harold Charles Harvey (1874–1941)

Penlee House Gallery & Museum

Most art that reflects human life will include children. In religious painting, the infant Christ is a very important subject and depictions of the Virgin and Child represent an ideal of maternal love. In mythological and allegorical paintings, representing ancient stories and universal themes, children appear as Cupid, the winged god of love, or as putti, his attendants; Christian angels also take the form of these chubby infants.


Read more

Children were a popular subject in paintings of everyday life, from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries – at play in the street, misbehaving in school or sitting peacefully at home. They are of course prominent in family portraits, or painted on their own. Here we can follow the development of children’s clothing and toys.

Artworks

  • 'Take your Son, Sir'
    'Take your Son, Sir' Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893)
    Tate Britain
  • Nuala McAllister, The Right Honorable, The Lord Mayor of Belfast (2017–2018)
    Nuala McAllister, The Right Honorable, The Lord Mayor of Belfast (2017–2018) Jamie Baird (b.1992) and Daniel Nelis (b.1990)
    Belfast City Hall
  • Mrs Marton and Her Son Oliver
    Mrs Marton and Her Son Oliver George Romney (1734–1802)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Seated Woman and Two Children
    Seated Woman and Two Children George Elgar Hicks (1824–1914)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Baby
    Baby George Elgar Hicks (1824–1914)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Father and Child
    Father and Child Duncan Grant (1885–1978) and Vanessa Bell (1879–1961)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Shepherd and Dogs
    Shepherd and Dogs John Emms (1843–1912)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • 2,718 more

Stories

  • The Majolica Fountain in the International Exhibition
    Capturing play and imagination at the Museum of Childhood

    Gary Haines

  • 2023–2024, acrylic on canvas by Kate Downie (b.1958). The artist and co-creator team stand with the artwork
    'Kate Downie: Conversations with Joan' at Glasgow Women's Library

    Aimee Murphy

  • Moments and memories: the intimate world of Claudia Williams' paintings

    Harry Heuser

  • The boy with the pearl earring: the decorative art of slavery

    Marjorie H. Morgan

  • The visible invisibility of Black people in aristocratic portraiture

    Marjorie H. Morgan

  • Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's 'The Marriage Feast at Cana'

    Helen Cobby and Rebecca Randle

  • Write on Art: 'Children and Chalk Wall 3' by Joan Eardley

    Aoife Hogan

  • Self-Portrait
    Thomas Lawrence: capturing the coming-of-age portrait

    Sylvie Broussine

  • Picturing Victorian childhood

    Katty Pearce

  • Seen and heard: Victorian children in the frame

    Katty Pearce

  • Mabel Nicholson: overlooked talent and mother of a British art dynasty

    Tim Cornwell

  • Meeting Modernism: 20th-Century Art in the Russell-Cotes Collection

    Sarah Newman

  • Thirteen weird and wonderful portraits on Art UK

    Jade King

  • Sitter and painting reunited at last thanks to Art Detective

    Courtney Halgren

  • Tracy Chevalier on Harold Gilman's 'The Artist's Daughters'

    Tracy Chevalier

  • Frank Bramley's 'The Grasmere Rushbearing'

    Tania Adams

  • Laura Ford in the studio
    Seven questions with Laura Ford

    Melissa Munro

  • Swaddles, corsets and breeches: a brief history of childrenswear

    Katy Canales

  • Laura Knight: enduring expressions of British summertime

    P. L. Henderson

  • Chantal Joffe's 'Looking towards Bexhill'

    Jennifer Powell

  • c.1924, original black & white drawing for linocut print by Wilhelmina Geddes (1887–1955)
    Sophia Rosamond Praeger: Irish artist and campaigner for women's rights

    Joseph McBrinn

  • 'I paint dead people': posthumous portraits

    Jade King

  • Write on Art: Käthe Kollwitz's 'Woman with Dead Child'

    Azzurra Mitchell

  • Briton Riviere: Victorian sentimentality and animals

    Sonia Roe

  • A rare survival from the Tudor period: 'Cornelia Burch, Aged Two Months'

    Sonia Roe

  • Children in seventeenth-century Dutch art: Portrait of a Girl, Aged One, with a Basket of Strawberries

    Alice Soulieux-Evans

  • Breastfeeding in art: Ernst Neuschul's 'Black Mother'

    Sarah Levitt

Learning resources

  • audio-description-playlist-preview-1.jpg
    Audio
    Audio description playlist
  • LSW_DHM_1994_1_CC0378-001.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Dora Gordine and portraiture
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
  • model-a-clay-head-1.jpg
    Activity
    Model a clay head
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • ybgallery-1.png
    Video
    The Superpower of Looking with YolanDa Brown
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS1 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L1 (SCO)
      PS2 (WAL)
  • wlhrhpe-thumbnail-1.png
    3D object
    William Lamb's 'HRH The Princess Elizabeth'
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
  • dscf6708-1-crop-1.jpg
    Video
    The Superpower of Looking's Art Adventure
    • KS1 (ENG)
      KS2 (ENG)
      CfE L1 (SCO)
      FD (NI)
      KS1 (NI)
      KS2 (NI)
      PS2 (WAL)
      PS3 (WAL)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
  • ll30-aeb-s010-002-thumbnail-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Lewis Carroll's characters
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • gordine-1.jpg
    Video
    Sculpture in focus: Dorich House and Dora Gordine
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • PTB_PLM_2014_71.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Sir Joshua Reynolds
    • KS2 (ENG)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      KS2 (NI)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
  • screenshot-2021-04-13-at-16-04-02-1.png
    Video
    Sculpture in focus: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS4 (ENG)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (NI)
      KS4 (NI)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • dur-du-eg4007-001-1.jpg
    Audio
    Audio description of 'Servant Girl Carrying a Jar' by unknown artist
    • KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)
      KS5 (ENG)
      KS5 (NI)
      CfE Sen. (SCO)
      KS5 (WAL)
  • NSC_IMAG_INVMG_2009_003-001.jpg
    Audio
    Audio description of 'Kenneth James Matheson' by Alexander Munro
    • KS5 (ENG)
      KS5 (NI)
      CfE Sen. (SCO)
      KS5 (WAL)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • gl-gm-3532-001-1.jpg
    Audio
    Audio description of 'Two Children' by Joan Eardley
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      SEND (ENG)
      SEND (NI)
      ASN (SCO)
      SEND (WAL)
  • sarah-graham-glasgow-1.png
    Video
    The Superpower of Looking with Sarah Graham in Glasgow
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
  • gl-gm-3532-001-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    The Superpower of Looking: Joan Eardley paints the children of Glasgow
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)

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® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).