Debut of Pre-Raphaelite delights at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

The largest exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite drawings and watercolours will be on display in Birmingham from this weekend.

It has taken three years to put the collection together for the exhibition The Poetry of Drawing: Pre-Raphaelite Designs, Studies and Watercolours, which is at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery from Saturday.

Most of the items in the exhibition have never been put on display because they are so fragile that the light could harm them. However, until May 15, visitors to the art gallery will be able to see famous works such as The Last of England, which is one of the most popular paintings in the country.

The Pre-Raphaelites are regarded as passionate and fiery rebels who banded together in London in 1848 and sparked a revolution in British art.

Guest curator Colin Cruise said: "It has taken three years to put this collection together but the Pre-Raphaelites are my specialism, and so it has been a labour of love."

The exhibition includes the first public display of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Mnemosyne.

Other works include Millais's Lovers by a Rosebush, Rossetti's Dante drawing Angel on the First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice, as well as Hunt's Hyperion.

Mr Cruise, who is usually based at Aberystwyth University, said: "We are trying to dispel the myth that Pre-Raphaelites just painted women with flowing red hair. The Pre-Raphaelites had an awkwardness about them, with the sharp angles in their drawings, which they thought was very modern."

He says he wanted the exhibition gallery to look crisp and modern rather than have a heavy Victorian feel to it. However, security is still paramount as small works in the exhibition, collected from all over the country including Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton, are either alarmed or in a glass case.

After its debut in Birmingham, the exhibition will move to Sydney.