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The Hunterian print collection includes some of the greatest Renaissance prints. Dürer and Italy, a new exhibition at the Hunterian Art focuses on the engravings of German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), and demonstrates how influential his prints were in Italy.

Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg was the first great artist to achieve fame through his prints. The exhibition presents engraved masterpieces by Dürer alongside contemporary Italian works and illustrates the surprising cultural exchange that took place in the years 1500-1528.

Dürer’s fascination with Italy began early. His godfather, the Nuremberg publisher Anton Koberger, traded books and prints with Venice, contributing to the young artist’s enthusiasm. Two journeys to Italy were made in 1494 and 1505-7, on which Dürer promoted himself as an artist, studied art, and met engravers and exponents of the art of perspective, which was still unknown in Germany.

Dürer’s prints were of two kinds: for the popular market he designed woodcuts, which were cheap and often sold as bound sets. The most popular were two series of the ‘Passion of Christ’ and another of the ‘Life of the Virgin’ (1511). His astonishingly detailed engravings were relatively expensive and appealed more to artists and collectors. They present figures and landscapes of unparalleled beauty that rapidly became highly fashionable especially in Italy.

Engravings are transportable and take an artist’s influence over large distances, and so Dürer’s work was soon known to Raphael in Rome, just as Dürer, as a young man in Nuremberg, knew engravings by Italian artists. Raphael did not make prints himself, but since he wished to publish his imagery, he provided sketches to be engraved by artists such as Marcantonio.

Marcantonio was one of the many Italian artists inspired by Dürer’s prints. Two of Marcantonio's best known works, his ‘Judgement of Paris’ and ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ are on display and provide a beautiful if somewhat dry classical vision when compared to Dürer's vision, tinged by his roots in Gothic illustration The Hunterian is home to 130 prints by Dürer as well as an important collection of 16th century Italian prints. The exhibition Dürer and Italy shows a small selection of these wonderful works. Dürer’s treatise on perspective is also included, and has been borrowed from the Special Collections department, Glasgow University Library.

Dürer and Italy continues until 22 March 2010.

From the earliest times, the southern shores of the Baltic Sea have been associated with the gathering, trading and working of amber - a natural substance which has been long valued by man.

Featuring some of the finest items from the Polish national collection, this new exhibition, Amber: Treasures from Poland offers a unique chance to see some fascinating and beautiful artefacts which represent both natural history and northern European craftsmanship. This is the first time that these items have been exhibited in the UK. Most are from the famous Malbork Castle collection in Poland which has an important national collection of Baltic amber artefacts. Also included is the famous Gier³owska lizard from the Gdañsk Amber Museum, as well as a collection of insects trapped in amber and some historical amber artefacts from the Hunterian collection.

Amber is found in many varieties of colours and forms and amber from the Baltic region of Europe is one of the most abundant in the world. It is used around the world for medical or spiritual wellbeing, for adornment or decoration, and for scientific reasons.

This exhibition introduces amber from prehistory to natural history; it looks at how people related to amber from the Stone Age onwards and at the incredible techniques and skill of the amber craftsmen who created some of the finest examples of amber art ever seen.

The launch of a new book ‘Amber: Tears of the Gods’ (Dunedin Academic Press) will coincide with the opening of the exhibition. It has been written by Dr Neil DL Clark, Curator of Palaeontology at the Hunterian.

Amber: Treasures from Poland is at the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow until 17 April 2010.

Scottish universities hold a high proportion of Scotland’s nationally-important museum collections – in total over 1.8 million items. Over 60% of these collections are uncatalogued with information on just 7.5% available on the web and 1.8% have images. This represents an enormous barrier to use. The University of Aberdeen is leading an 18-month project with eight other UMIS members to create collection-level descriptions for all the Scottish university museums, together with improved electronic access to item-level catalogues and images.

Scottish university museums hold 32% of the country’s materials on history of science, 31% of the nation’s coins and medals, 24% of its fine art, 20% of natural science collections and 18% of world culture, all with a disproportionately high representation of nationally, and internationally, important items, and usually associated with rich contextualising information.

We have received £240,000 from the Scottish Funding Council towards a £318,000 project to make the museum collections in Scottish universities more accessible to researchers and the wider public.

The partners in this project are:

• University of Aberdeen
• University of Dundee
• University of Edinburgh
• University of Glasgow
• Glasgow School of Art
• Heriot Watt University
• Robert Gordon University
• University of St Andrews
• University of Stirling

Find out more on the project page.

Universities Celebrate D'Arcy Thompson (October 2009) 2010 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who was Professor of Biology at University College Dundee 1885-1917 and Professor of Natural History at the University of St Andrews 1917-1948. With the help of a grant from the Royal Society's Local Heroes initiative, the two universities are joining forces to celebrate this extraordinary polymath, whose greatest work, On Growth & Form, pioneered the science of biomathematics and has also influenced writers, artists and architects alike. A varied programme of exhibitions and events will take place throughout the year, and you can find out more at www.darcythompson.org

From now on the minutes of all UMIS meetings will be uploaded to the website. These will include regular reports from members of their activities. To view the site, click here.

You can now read the museum collecting policies of several UMIS members online. You can find the appropriate links on the UMIS site - click here for details.