British Art Network Seminar 2015: Displaying Art in Domestic Settings

Giles Waterfield briefly examines how the role and position of the painted surface within an interior evolved over many years. The talk looks at a handful of eighteenth-century interiors and considers the changing position of painting within these spaces, charting a process of liberation from the overall decorum of the room that was both gradual and hard-fought. 

Download Giles Waterfield | The Picture and the Room (MP3, 4.0 MB)

The hearth has long been at the heart of the home: the focal point of a room; a site and symbol of warmth and hospitality. As such, it is a prominent feature in many eighteenth-century conversation pieces, in which family and friends are often shown clustered in domestic settings, enjoying card games and / or drinking tea in front of the fireplace. Kate Retford, Senior Lecturer and Head of the History of Art department at Birkbeck College, considers the representation and significance of the hearth.

Download Kate Retford | The Heart of the Home: The Hearth in Eighteenth-Century British Portraiture (MP3, 18.5 MB)

Kim Clayton Greene, PhD student in Art History at the University of Melbourne, examines several contemporary paintings of the Victorian domestic interior that include the print, contrasting their depiction against contemporary domestic advice writings. This talk considers potential uses of the print in display, such as presenting the narrative of the artist or home owner and contributing to a general sense of era.

Download Kim Clayton Greene | Understanding the display of prints in the Nineteenth-Century home (MP3, 18.1 MB)

In 1809 the visionary poet and printmaker William Blake (1757-1827) held a one-man show of his ‘Poetical and Historical Inventions’ in upstairs rooms above his brother’s hosiery shop in Golden Square, Soho – the house they had grown up in. In this talk Martin Myrone reflects on modern attempts to reconstruct and interpret the exhibition, the questions of methodology these raise, and on the organisation and reception of the in-focus display about the 1809 exhibition held at Tate Britain in 2009.

Download Martin Myrone | William Blake’s 1809 Exhibition (MP3, 597.0 KB)

In 1919, when Sir Alfred Munnings found and bought Castle House, near Dedham in Essex, he called it ‘the House of my Dreams’. After his death in 1959 the house was opened as a museum, a ‘shrine’ to his talent, by Lady Munnings. A recent change in the governance and staffing of the museum has brought about an entire redisplay of the artist’s home for the 2015 season. This talk from the museum’s Director gives an overview of the opportunities and obligations faced by the curatorial team as well as some of the practical issues they encountered during the rehang. 

Download Jenny Hand | The House of his Dreams: Reimagining The Munnings Art Museum (MP3, 8.2 MB)

‘The intangible cultural heritage is transmitted from generation to generation, and is constantly recreated by communities and groups, in response to their environment, their interaction with nature,and their history. It provides people with a sense of identity and continuity,and promotes respect for cultural diversity and human creativity’ (UNESCO). Michael Huijser, executive director of Rembrandt House Museum and advisor Council for Culture for the Dutch Government, explains the importance of the intangible for the lifeline of a contemporary heritage museum.

Download Michael Huijser | The strength of intangible cultural heritage (MP3, 6.1 MB)

When Grayson Perry’s  series of tapestries The Vanity of Small Differences appeared in the rooms of the South Wing of Temple Newsam House in the autumn of 2014 it was the first time since the war years that contemporary art had featured at this Elizabethan-Jacobean house. Nigel Walsh reflects on the history of Temple Newsam House and its changing strategies of display.

Download Nigel Walsh | Nothing ‘of serious historical or artistic interest’, Temple Newsam House, Leeds (MP3, 9.5 MB)

Pallant House Gallery is a unique mixture of a Grade 1 listed Queen Anne townhouse and a contemporary extension designed by Colin St John Wilson and Associates. This presentation by the Gallery’s Artistic Director discusses the evolving curatorial approach, from the original historic house displays to the current more nuanced and flexible approach to presenting the ‘collection of collections’ of Modern British art and the programme of site specific contemporary installations.

Download Simon Martin | Historic and Contemporary at Pallant House Gallery (MP3, 15.6 MB)