Art Fund support for museums and galleries outside London has never be - PDF document

1 Art Fund support for museums and galleri
Art Fund support for museums and galleries outside London has never been greater than today. Over 75% of our grants invest in regional art collections and the curators who care for them, ensuring that visitors canenjoy a brilliant variety of art wherever they are in the UK. Art Fund’s longstanding partnership with museums and galleries in Cambridge is a fantastic example of the dierence our support makes. Since our rst grant to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1905 we have invested over £2.5m in bringing works of art into public view across thecity; inhelping to place gifts and bequests; and, through dedicated programmes including our New Collecting Awards, in supporting the curatorial expertise that is vital to bring these works to life.This March, Art Partners will visit the new Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge following its major redevelopment. As part of a visit to the city, theincredibly varied collections of the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology are essential viewing. Here,we’ve selected six collection highlights which were acquired with ArtFund support, and which have had a transformative impact on these very dierent collections. Discover great art in Cambridge Aoudla Pudlat, Shaman with Two Wifes, 2001-2002, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Art Funded 2012 Opened to the public in 1848, the Fitzwilliam houses an astounding variety of collections ranging from historic Asian art, coins and medals to Old Master paintings and illuminated manuscripts. Key works purchased with Art Fund support include:Nicolas Poussin, This moving depiction of the last rites sacrament by the great 17th-century classical French painter Nicolas Poussin was acquired in 2012. Jane Munro, Keeper of Paintings, Drawing and Prints at the Fitzwilliam, describes it as ‘the most important Old Master painting to enter the museum’s collection for over a century’. Art Fund and the Fitzwilliam ran a national appeal to raise £3.9m to bring the work into the collection, towhich Art Fund members contributed over £140,000 through individual donations. The fantastic response to the campaign also helped the museum to tour Poussin’s masterpiece in 2015, meaning audiences across the UK could see it.The Goodison gifts of contempora

2 ry British craftMichael Eden’s 3D-p
ry British craftMichael Eden’s 3D-printed vase Neon Pink Vortex (2015) is an exciting fusion of traditional craft and modern technology, pushing the boundaries of both art and design. It is the latest addition to the Goodison Gift – more than 100 examples of contemporary glass, ceramics, furniture, jewellery and metalwork donated by ArtFund’s former chairman Nicholas Goodison and his wife, JudithGoodison. From lustreware to furniture, the pair choose objects that ‘you can’t walk by’ and which ‘sing’ to them. Recentlypublished as a catalogue, the gifts have the dual aim of supporting contemporary artists, and were all donated through Art Fund. The Maccleseld Psalter, c1330-40Bawdiness was no obstacle to piety in the Middle Ages. This stunning 14th-century illuminated manuscript, deriving from East Anglia, combines dogs dressed as bishops, bare bottoms and lustful wooing with devotional text and art. In a race against time to prevent its export, the work was saved for the nation in 2005 after a joint Art Fund and Fitzwilliam appeal. Art Fund raised nearly a third of the required £1.5m, with signicant donations from Art Partners. This delicate manuscript has been captured digitally as part of the museum’s ILLUMINATED programme, and can now be explored page by page on Fitzwilliam’s website Nicolas Poussin, c. 1638-1640, Fitzwilliam Museum, Art Funded 2012 Neon Pink Vortex, 2015, Fitzwilliam Museum, Art Funded 2015Maccleseld Psalter, c. 1330, Fitzwilliam Museum, Art Funded 2005 The Museum of Archaeology and AnthropologyFounded in 1884, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) tells the story of nearly two million years of human history through objects, art and photography. Keyworks purchased with Art Fund support include:A new collection of Adivasi Indian artAn unprecedented collection of 23 contemporary works of art from marginalised Indian communities has helped to throw new light on MAA’s historic Indian collections. As curator Mark Elliott explains, the works from Adivasi Indian artists, acquired with support from the New Collecting Awards, ‘have allowed us to reimagine and reinterpret our Indian collections for a new generation’. As well as purchasing key existing works for the collection such a

3 s Mangru Uike’s ink drawings (pictu
s Mangru Uike’s ink drawings (pictured above), Elliott has used his New Collecting Award to commission 11 new pieces, including Ocean of Blood (2016) by Bokli Nageshwar Rao, a towering sculpture of recycled steel. The new collection is on show now as part of the exhibition Another India: Explorations and Expressions ofIndigenous South Asia, which runs until 22 April. Brook Andrew,Contemporary Australian artist Brook Andrew uses hiswork to tackle stereotypical representations of Aboriginal people. Often working from images found in museum stores, his work generates debate around historical depictions of indigenous people and unlocks sometimes problematic archival material. His mixed-media works were produced in response to over 300 ethnographic images of Aboriginal people in MAA’s stores and were acquired bythe museum with the help of a £10,040 grant from ArtFund in 2008. The works are major additions to the museum’s collection in themselves, and have helped to bring historical images of Aboriginal culture out of the archives and into publicview. Painting on barkcloth featuring the Titikaveka Church, Rarotonga, 1842-46Captain Cook was the rst European to collect barkcloth, a versatile material made by soaking and beating the inner bark of trees. Hand-painted, dyed or cut into patterns, it was used for clothing and ceremonial purposes across Africa, Asia and the Pacic. Thisexquisite painting of a church in the Cook Islands illustrates, quite literally, the impact Christian missionaries had on representational art in Polynesia. A rare and fascinating piece of history, it was secured for the collection with the help of an Art Fund grant of £9,500 in 2016. This important work, acquired with a smaller Art Fund grant, is already due to be shared beyond the Cambridge collection. It is currently in conservation ahead of its display as part of the Royal Academy’s Oceania exhibition, opening in September. Mangru Uike, Untitled (Elephants), 2016, Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, Art Funded 2017Brook Andrew, The Island I [Red mound], 2008, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Art FundedUnknown artist, painting on barkcloth featuring The Titikaveka Church, Rarotonga, CookIslands, 1842-1846, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Art Funded 20