Curated by Dr Jacqueline Riding, Basic Instincts explores Georgian attitudes to love, desire and female respectability through the radical paintings of Joseph Highmore. A highly successful artist and Governor of London’s Foundling Hospital, Joseph Highmore (1692-1780) is best known as a portrait painter of the Georgian middle class.

The Foundling Museum displays a series of five previously unseen sculptures by acclaimed artist Rachel Kneebone, providing a resonant counterpoint to their exhibition Basic Instincts. Rachel Kneebone is a British artist whose intricate works address and question the human condition.

During the German occupation of the Channel Islands 1940-1945, many thousands of people were persecuted, including slave labourers, political prisoners and Jews. Their story has been largely omitted from a British narrative of ‘standing alone’ against Nazism and celebrations of British victory over Germany.