Edward Robert Hughes' paintings are now most often seen on greetings cards.
In 1909 art critic Huntly Carter called them "pictures which, if reduced, might decorate confetti boxes".
Now a Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) exhibition will try to make visitors reconsider the artist.
Enchanted Dreams: The Pre-Raphaelite Art of ER Hughes opens for a five-month run on Sunday.
BMAG already has the world's largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
The museum's curator of fine art Victoria Osborne said the exhibition is "the culmination of a ten-year journey of discovery, exploring public and private collections across the world to uncover works unseen for a century and the life of a 'lost' artist."
"His fantastical paintings are familiar worldwide on greetings cards, calendars and posters, but as an artist Hughes is virtually forgotten, lost in time.
"We plan to set the picture straight, giving the artist the recognition he finally deserves," said Ms Osborne, who wrote her thesis on the painter.
The exhibition is the first ever full-scale retrospective of Hughes' work, and will also include details about his life, such as a portrait of him by his uncle, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes.
Paintings not seen for 100 years are to be unveiled in Birmingham in an exhibition of an artist whose work is familiar to many, but whose name is relatively unknown.