Art History: History of Collecting & Collections

Background

This programme introduces you to the study of the history of collecting, as it has been pursued by individuals and by civic, educational or national institutions. It examines cultures of collecting and various modalities for the presentation of collections as developed in Europe, Asia, North America and more specifically Britain, from the late 18th century through to the present. You will consider a range of theoretical and ethical issues alongside cultural, financial and societal mechanisms that have informed collecting practices historically and which continue to do so. You will also have the opportunity to explore a range of different collections from the encyclopaedic to the concise, and to question their context and strategies of presentation and their circulation through loan.

Themes of the programme include:

• How collections have been framed by: questions of subjectivity; by the emergence of nation states or the pursuit of empire; by the emergence of exchange and circulation mechanisms such as the market; and by broader societal processes informing the collecting practices of institutions and individuals
• The significance of a range of factors to collections and their histories, including: connoisseurship, taste and travel, the operations of the market, patterns of exchange, the professionalization of the curator, specialisation of knowledge, civil society and benefactors

Through its courses and the work placements it offers, the programme seeks to offer you sustained engagement and contact with collections in context. Teaching is based partly in the classroom and partly in collections, and the University’s own Hunterian collections provide a consistent point of departure and contextualisation for the students. The programme makes use of public and private collections accessible in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and further afield in Scotland.

The programme includes a field trip to Newcastle and the Northeast.