The first of our THREE In Conversation events as part of the AHRC funded ‘Year of the Dealer’ project (2019-2020) was held at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, near Liverpool on Thursday 21st November -there are TWO further In Conversation events; one at Temple Newsam, Leeds on Thursday 23rd April 2020; and a final In Conversation at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, on Thursday 7th May 2020.
The In Conversation events are themed around an on-going, public-facing conversation on the historical and contemporary relationships between the art market and museums and the wider research project to investigate the history of antique dealing in Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries – a subject explored in the original AHRC funded project ‘Antique Dealers: the British Antique Trade in the 20th century, a cultural geography’ (2013-2016) and the various research initiatives and projects that both underpinned and have been subsequently developed from, this fascinating and previously very little studied area of British cultural life – you can of course follow all the projects associated with this strand of research in our new project website ‘Antique Dealers’ at the University of Leeds.
Our In Conversation at the Lady Lever Art Gallery was focused on the collecting activities of William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), the founder of the Lady Lever Art Gallery – with a theme of collecting and the art market ‘Then & Now’ – the market for decorative art (or Antiques as one might also call them) in the late 19th and early 20th century and the market for decorative art/antiques today. We had a very distinguished panel of experts for the In Conversation – from right to left in the photograph below are Sandra Penketh, Director of Art Galleries and Collections Care at National Museums, Liverpool; Robin Emmerson, curator emeritus, Lady Lever Art Gallery; Colin Simpson, Principal Museums Officer, Wirral Museums; Prof Nick Pearce, Professor of Art History at Glasgow University; Peter Woods, antique dealer and collector and me – Mark Westgarth, University of Leeds. We also had an excellent and packed audience of interested and interesting people – including lots of people from the local area and with associations with the Lady Lever Art Gallery – but it was good to see people from much further afield too – some had travelled all the way from London and the South East of England! Thank you to everyone on the Panel and everyone who attended for making the event such a success!
In Conversation at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, 21st November 2019.
The discussion and debate was lively and informative, with each of the participants on the Panel offering reflections on the art market, collecting and museums from historical and contemporary perspectives (from various ‘stakeholders’ if you like – museum professionals, academics, and professional antique dealers and collectors) . There were also some great questions from the assembled audience. I don’t think we exhausted the theme at all (certainly not in the relatively short time we had for the ‘In Conversation’) – indeed, its just as well we have many more events and activities as part of the ‘Year of the Dealer’ project!
It was great to see the project had so engaged the participants, and bodes well for future events. I’d like to thank everyone at the Lady Lever Art Gallery – Sandra Penketh, Alyson Pollard, Dave Moffat – and the events team at Lady Lever – Joel, Caroline, Nina and Kimmi – and all the support staff, for all of their help with the development and delivery of the In Conversation. And of course the Year of the Dealer project team, Eleanor, Vanessa, Simon and Gemma, for all their hard work too.
Do keep a look out for future events as part of the ‘Year of the Dealer’ project each of the In Conversation events are free to attend (bookings will open soon for the Temple Newsam and V&A Museum events) – we also have a wine reception for each on the In Conversations (if you needed any further incentive to come along of course!). We hope to see you at Temple Newsam and at the V&A Museum next year. Do keep you eye on the events pages on the Year of the Dealer project website.
Mark
antiquedealersblog 