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This case study focuses on an exhibition of a collection of books owned or written by the great sixteenth-century writer Michel de Montaigne. These books were donated to the Cambridge University Library by the family of Gilbert de Botton. Philip Ford was involved in negotiating with the family for this donation, and subsequently wrote a monograph on the collection to accompany the exhibition. During the writing of this monograph, he worked closely with the exhibition's curator, Jill Whitelock (a senior librarian at Cambridge University Library), to determine the form and content of the exhibition. The monograph and exhibition attracted considerable attention and was followed up by public lectures by Philip Ford. The principal benefit from this project has been the enhanced conservation and presentation of the cultural heritage of sixteenth-century France.
University of Glasgow research has delivered an online, searchable and fully annotated database providing unprecedented access to a comprehensive collection of etchings, drypoints and mezzotints by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Access to over 5,000 images of 490 etchings and their copper plates accompanied by all documentary or published records has transformed understanding of Whistler's art and his techniques. This catalogue raisonné has received over 27,000 visits each month since it launched in October 2011 and is used by artists, curators, art critics and collectors, auctioneers and others in the UK and abroad. Consultations sparked by the catalogue's profile and authority have resulted in the authentication of key Whistler works for purchase at auction houses, including Sotheby's and Doyle's, and input to exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
This project, which challenged both preconceptions about a renowned artist and also the character of a retrospective, resulted in the most visited art exhibition ever staged at the Grand Palais in Paris (913,064 visitors). At the request of the Musée d'Orsay and Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Professor Richard Thomson led the team organising Monet, 1840-1926. This was the first major retrospective of the work of Monet in Paris since 1980 and provided a model for mounting retrospectives. Building on research into the wider socio-historical impact of art, and its ability to stimulate debate, the radical display of Monet's paintings has made their scholarly interpretation more publicly accessible and is recorded in an exhibition catalogue that sold 83,000 copies.
`Picasso Peace and Freedom' was presented at Tate Liverpool, Albertina and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in 2010-11. This major exhibition, curated by Professor Lynda Morris and Dr Christoph Grunenberg, presented a reassessment of the impact of Picasso's politics on his paintings, drawings and sculptures, challenging what has been seen as the artist's lack of engagement with serious politics. 711,905 people visited the three exhibitions, gaining new views of the artist's political engagements with major international developments of the twentieth century and with leaders of countries that remain centres of tension today. As an example of the economic impact of the research, the exhibition brought direct visitor spend of almost £5 million to the city of Liverpool, in which it was initially presented.
Professor Nicholas Cronk, has in collaboration with others, created an app which is an enhanced edition of Voltaire's Candide, freely available, for use on tablets. Candide is a timeless and universal text with perennial appeal, and this digital edition renders it accessible to a wide variety of new readers. Cronk has been encouraging engagement with Voltaire's texts through more traditional channels but this latest innovation has won new readers for Voltaire, especially among a young generation often more familiar with new media than with traditional books. The app, with its dual level of annotations, illustrations, manuscript images, commentaries, and the Polyadès recording, has been well received by a wide range of readers, and functions in a curatorial capacity to preserve an important work of French classical literary heritage in a new, sustainable format. The Candide app represents a revolutionary tool for both independent learning, and also for classroom teaching.
An exhibition researched and co-curated by the University of Reading's Alun Rowlands — The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art — at Tate St Ives presented an accessible new approach to the display of the Cornish gallery's artworks. It widened public access to this important resource and enabled public understanding and appreciation of 20th-century British art by juxtaposing, and drawing connections between, famous historical artworks, contemporary pieces and examples from popular culture, literature, film, music and local folk ritual. This democratic approach was extended through the associated educational projects, performance events and publications. The model has subsequently influenced strategy at Tate museums across the UK, demonstrating that connections can be drawn across different categories of culture as a way of emphasising the contemporary relevance of previously underused and obscure public collections and as a way of promoting public interaction.