Derbyshire curators head to the Yale Centre for British Art
April 25, 2013 2 Comments
Next week I fly to America to take up a 4 week curatorial fellowship at the Yale Centre for British Art. This was something that I applied for back in July, when it all seemed a very long way off…
One of the aims of the Enlightenment! project has been to undertake collections mapping and gain a clearer overview of relevant Derbyshire collections in the public domain. This has been an on-going project and included Neil Howe’s ephemera report and the object catalogues that Ruth Litton worked on. My 4 weeks at YCBA will build on their research to give us a better picture of what Derbyshire artworks are out there.
I will also hopefully uncover more information about Derbyshire; the chronology of its buildings, road infrastructure, water engineering, and evolution of industries. I plan to make myself useful indentifying some of their Derbyshire sketchbook views too.
YCBA have a fantastic collection including several Joseph Wright’s, a couple of Stubbs’s showing Creswell Crags, and theoriginal ‘View near Matlock’ by De Loutherbourg – of which we have an aquatint in our collection. I am most excited about seeing their watercolours from John Webber and William Day’s 1789 tour of Derbyshire. Through the Enlightenment! project we’ve bought 3 pictures from this tour, with a fourth possibly on the cards – watch this space…
I plan to share my findings on the blog and hope that my fellow travel companion, curator and ‘fellowshipee’, Lucy Bamford might do the same. Lucy is the art curator at Derby Museums and her fellowship will focus on the works of Joseph Wright. All very exciting and a tad nerve-wracking, but I am sure we’ll have a fantastic experience.
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