The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia presents an exhibition of over 80 works by the French Romantic master, Théodore Géricault (1791-1824). These are rarely seen treasures borrowed for an exclusive engagement at the Belkin Gallery from the Musee du Louvre, the Ecole nationale superior des Beaux Arts (Paris) and other prestigious French and Canadian museums. This is a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity to experience these drawings and watercolors which are rarely on public display due to their fragility.

In his short, tempestuous life, Géricault became one of the great artists of history. The painter of the Raft of the Medusa (1819) was among the first artists to reject the academic practice of copying antique models of mythological subjects. Fascinated with the war veterans and their tales of military glory and defeat, Géricault, brings to life post-Napoleonic Paris and the great metropolis of London where he spent two years. He reveled in the sporting life (he died at 33 of injuries received in a horsing accident) while at the same time taking up social causes of his day such as the abolition of the slave trade.