Research | Current Research Projects
Current Research Projects
The Barber Institute, in collaboration with Christiana Payne of Oxford Brooks University and with the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, is undertaking a major project researching the portraits of John Brett. This will lead to an important exhibition, opening in April 2010, of this little-explored area of the leading Pre-Raphaelite artist. The exhibition will show the public for the first time many portraits which have never previously been seen in public before as well as loans form the National Portrait Gallery, The British Museum and Tate. Director, Professor Ann Sumner, is carrying out exciting new research on Brett’s links with Birmingham, the pictures he exhibited here, his patrons and the controversial lecture he delivered here in 1890 to the Birmingham Congress of the National Association for the Advancement of Art and its Application to Industry. The exhibition coincides with the publication of Christiana Payne’s new book on John Brett’s career which is published by Yale University Press.
Professor Ann Sumner is also currently working on a forthcoming exhibition on artistic representations of lawn tennis, the first exhibition of this subject. The Barber is a particularly good host for this exhibition, because the first ever game of lawn tennis was played in Edgbaston. The game has inspired some important paintings over the last 150 years, and as well as curating the exhibition, Ann is working with Professor Kenneth McConkey of Northumbria University, who is contributing an essay on Lavery’s tennis paintings.
The recently retired Paul Spencer-Longhurst, so long our Senior Curator, will be leading a new project researching the early history of the Barber and the acquisitions of Thomas Bodkin. The project will culminate in an exhibition to mark the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Barber, to be held in 2014. We have also commissioned a survey of our applied art collections to assist us in our future displays and research and conservation needs.
Encounters: Travel and Money in the Byzantine World, by the Barber’s Keeper of Coins, Eurydice Georganteli, and Barrie Cook, from the British Museum, was declared one of the runners-up in the prestigious AXA Art/Art Newspaper Exhibition Catalogue Award 2007. |
Dr Eurydice Georganteli has been working on the research themes Cultural Exchange in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and City and Countryside. The first project, a partnership with the British Museum, has resulted in the exhibition Encounters: Travel and Money in the Byzantine World (London 2006-2007, Birmingham 2007-2008), participation in the Byzantium exhibition of the Royal Academy (London 2008), the award-winning publication Encounters (London 2006), a Numismatic Round Table as part of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies (London 2006), a series of lectures and research seminars (academic years 2006/07, 2007/08), a concert on Byzantine music in collaboration with the Department of Music, University of Birmingham as part of the 2007 Birmingham Early Music Festival, educational activities and family days.
Eurydice is currently working on a monograph on the Via Egnatia and travel in the Medieval Balkans. Field work for her forthcoming publication is supported by a British Academy Small Research Grant and by a Travel Grant from the College of Arts & Law, University of Birmingham.
The research project City and Countryside explores aspects of the aesthetics, economy and identity of European cities from antiquity to the 21st century. Coins, seals, medals, banknotes, prints and drawings, paintings, sculpture, architectural remains, archaeological finds and travelogues trace the transformation of cities and their surrounding countryside, and address issues of place and identity. The outcome of the project are four exhibitions and two related publications. The Barber Institute-British Museum joint exhibition Changing Landscapes: The Industrial Revolution and the British Banknote (Barber Institute 2008-2009) provided an invaluable insight into the economy and society of nineteenth century Britain, while the AHRC collaborative research and exhibition project Matthew Boulton and the Art of Making Money (2009-2010) focuses on eighteenth-century Birmingham. The forthcoming exhibitions Cityscapes: Panoramic Views on European Coins and Medals (2012-2013) and Visualising the Ancient and Medieval City (Barber Institute 2013-2015) explore visual references to European cities from the 5th century BC to the 18th century AD.