HKI news

Gerry Hedley Symposium – June 2013

April 16th, 2013

The 31th Annual Gerry Hedley Symposium is being hosted by the students and interns of the Hamilton Kerr Institute. It will be held on Monday 10th June, 2013 at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

The event will feature final-year students from all three UK postgraduate painting conservation programs (Hamilton Kerr Institute, Courtauld Institute of Art, Northumbria University), who will present their research projects. The conference also provides an environment where students and professionals can share ideas and interact.

The registration fee is UKP 15 for students and UKP 20 for non-students. This will include a copy of preprints, morning & afternoon refreshments, and a drinks reception in the courtyard following the presentations. All delegates must be registered by 30th May, 2013.

All are welcome

To book:
Register and pay online via the Cambridge eSales system
OR
Mail the completed registration form and cheque (made payable to “Gerry Hedley Student Symposium”) to:

Hamilton Kerr Institute
Mill Lane
Whittlesford
CB22 4NE
United Kingdom

There is an opportunity to visit the Hamilton Kerr studios on Tuesday 11th June from 9:30 am to 11:30 am.
Please email if you wish to attend, as space is limited.
For further queries, please contact us: (telephone) 01223 832 040 (email) gerryhedley2013@gmail.com

Related Documents:

Programme (pdf)
List of Speakers (pdf)

Sponsors:

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Re-discovering Cotman and Crome: Seeing through Paintings

December 6th, 2012

This exhibition at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery (1^st December 2012 – 17^th March 2013) is part of the outcome of research carried out by Rose Miller at the Hamilton Kerr Institute. Focussing on x-rays and infrared imaging of paintings by John Sell Cotman and John Crome, this exhibition aims to make technical research accessible to the public. Funded by a Curatorial Research grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and in collaboration with Norwich Castle Museum, the research has shown that they painted on re-used, recycled and coarse materials, often through aesthetic choices rather than for reasons of economy or availability.

John Crome trained as a coach, house and sign painter. Infrared imaging has revealed that he painted one of his finest landscapes The Yare at Thorpe on an old painted coach door.

John Crome, The Yare at Thorpe, c.1806

John Crome, The Yare at Thorpe, c.1806, infrared, rotated 90 degrees

Both artists frequently employed re-used materials to paint on, such as this coach door, and also cupboard doors and old paintings. They also often used coarse canvases and Crome painted Norwich River: Afternoon on ticking, the twill-weave striped material still used on mattresses and pillows. In their time the two Norwich men were often criticised for their lack of finish, and art historians have questioned whether they were limited in their choices by high taxes on artist materials. This research, however, has shown that a preference for the ‘rough’ aesthetic exhibited by both artists often resulted from intentional visual decisions. Their paintings are tactile objects, with a richness of surface resulting from the methods they chose to use.

John Sell Cotman, Boat House and Trees, c.1806-8, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery

In Cotman’s painting Boat House and Trees there are dried flakes of paint stuck in the surface, likely to have come from the pierced opening in the pigs bladders used to store oil paint in this period (metal tubes didn’t come into use until the 1840s). These, along with brush hairs left in the paint and the mottled texture of the piece of millboard he painted on, add to the immediacy of the image, connecting it to the natural world depicted.

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Internships in the conservation of easel paintings.

November 15th, 2012

Hamilton Kerr Institute
Fitzwilliam Museum
University of Cambridge

Two internships will be offered from September 2013. Tenable for one year, interns may be invited to extend the internship for a further year. Applicants should be recent graduates from a recognised training programme. The internships are designed to allow concentration on practical studio work, but with opportunities for research work, depending on current projects at the Institute. The internships will be funded, with a maintenance grant of £1,200 p/m and the tuition fees reimbursed. One or two other internships may be offered, but these will not necessarily be fully funded, and candidates will be required to find some of the funding required (maintenance and tuition fees).

The University has a responsibility to ensure that candidates comply with UK Border and Immigration legislation and have the right to live and undertake an internship in the UK.

Applications (covering letter and c.v.) and two letters of reference (sent directly to the Institute by referees) should be e-mailed or addressed to:
The Administrator, the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Mill Lane, Whittlesford, Cambridge CB22 4NE, UK
Tel: 44(0)1223 832040; Fax: 44(0)1223.837595
e-mail: hki-admin@lists.cam.ac.uk
website: www-hki.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

Closing date for all applications: 31 January 2013

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2013 Open Day

October 16th, 2012

The Hamilton Kerr Institute is holding an open afternoon on 14th January (starting at 2:15 PM). We would be grateful if you could confirm by email (hki-admin@lists.cam.ac.uk) or telephone (+44 1223 832 040) before 5th January if you wish to attend. Visitor numbers are limited.

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Painting Restoration Before La Restauration: The Origins of the Profession in France

March 20th, 2012

Ann Massing

Published by the Hamilton Kerr Institute and Harvey Miller as volume 3 of the series Painting and Practice

cover of 'Painting Restoration Before La Restauration'
During the second half of the eighteenth century, the profession of painting restorer became established in France. Documents concerning the careers of the restorers of that period employed by the French Royal Collection, and then by the new French Republic, have been examined, resulting in this study in which the biographies of the main painting restorers of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are placed into the historical and cultural setting of the period. Details of the techniques used by these restorers are presented in detail. The narrative concludes in the early nineteenth century with the death of François-Toussaint Hacquin in 1832 – about the time of the Restauration (of Louis-Philippe to the throne) in 1830.

Ann Massing has a degree in the History of Art and Fine Art from Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana and has the title of Diplom-Restorator from the Institute für Technologie der Malerei, Stuttgart, Germany. She is a painting restorer and was Assistant to the Director of the Hamilton Kerr Institute from 1978 to 2007.

This work has been compiled under funding from a British Academy Research Readership from 1995 to 1997 and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship from 2005 to 2006. The Samuel H Kress Foundation contributed towards the cost of the illustrations.

The book may be ordered directly from the publisher, Brepols.

Hardback. ISBN: 978-1-905375-34-9

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Registration opens for conference: The Art and Science of Medieval Church Screens

March 1st, 2012

We are pleased to announce that the conference The Art and Science of Medieval Church Screens is now open for registration at: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1711/

The conference will take place on Friday, 27 April 2012 and Saturday, 28 April 2012 at CRASSH, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge.

Student fee (includes lunches and teas/coffees) £30.00
Full fee (includes lunches and teas/coffees) £60.00

The Art and Science of Medieval Church Screens will help shape new understandings of old barriers: the richly carved and painted screens which filled medieval churches. These screens divided ‘lay’ from ‘priestly’ jurisdiction, but it has been argued also served to unify architectural space. They are found throughout Europe and survive in particularly high numbers in England, despite being part-dismantled during the Reformation.

The conference will bring together art historians, historians of religion, conservators, and conservation scientists, providing the latest scholarship on the subject from both western and eastern Europe. The geographical scope of the conference is equally broad, ranging from Scandinavia to Italy, England to Russia.

The rood screen project at the Hamilton Kerr Institute has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The conference has been convened by the Cambridge University Medieval Panel Painting Research Centre with the support of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH), University of Cambridge and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

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Lecture by Rose Miller at Norwich Castle Museum

January 15th, 2012

Wednesday 18th January 2012. The Materials and Techniques of John Sell Cotman and John Crome.
Illustrated lecture by Rose Miller. Town Close Auditorium, Norwich Castle. 2.30pm.
John Sell Cotman and John Crome were painting before the period when artists’ materials were generally available. Rose Miller has been researching their materials and techniques. This is a wonderful opportunity to find out about some of the most recent research on the work of these famous Norwich School artists.
more details on the website of the friends of Norwich Museum.

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2012 Open Day

December 4th, 2011

The Hamilton Kerr Institute is holding an open afternoon on 11th January (starting at 2:20 PM). We would be grateful if you could confirm by email (hki-admin@lists.cam.ac.uk) or telephone (+44 1223 832 040) before 5th January if you wish to attend. Visitor numbers are limited.

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