Lewis Brander included in ‘Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley’ at Alison Jacques, London

Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley
Curated by Daniel Malarkey
24 January – 8 March 2025
Alison Jacques Gallery, London

The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.
– Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca, 1938

The title of the exhibition comes from the opening line of Rebecca, the 1938 Gothic novel by Daphne du Maurier, whose screen adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock won an Academy Award in 1940. Rebecca tells the story of a fictional country house and estate, Manderley, owned by du Maurier’s male protagonist Maxim de Winter. The female narrator, who remains unnamed throughout, marries de Winter and becomes the mistress of the seemingly idyllic Manderley, but soon senses an atmosphere of doom as she suspects the house is haunted by Rebecca, de Winter’s first wife.