Previous News Reports

The Collector's Art celebrates the collections of two friends of the Hunterian who have collected works of art with great enthusiasm for many years. One a composer and the other a historian, both have surrounded themselves with works that fire and stimulate the imagination.

In recent years they independently decided to share the pleasure and excitement gained from their collections by generously proposing that works selected by the Hunterian should, in due course, form part of the University's art collection.

The exhibition illustrates their tastes, and contrasts a fine selection of works. Over 50 prints, drawings and paintings are on show focussing on British and German art of the late 19th and 20th centuries and including works by Joan Eardley, J.D. Fergusson, Kathe Kollwitz, Ian Fleming, Emil Orlik, Barbara Rae and Frances Walker.

The Collector's Art runs from 9 October 2009 until 9 January 2010 and will be closed from 25 December 2009 until 4 January inclusive for the Christmas and New Year holiday. Find out more here.

2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet. To celebrate, the Hunterian has mounted an exhibition about the Scottish Bard and the medals commemorating him.

Burns was born in 1759 to a poor Ayrshire farming family. He wrote his poetry based on his experiences, collected old Scots songs and composed many of his own.

After the publication of his verse in 1786 he was idolised by Edinburgh society. However he returned to the west to become an exciseman in Dumfries. The Scottish Bard died there, aged only 37, in 1796.

More medals have been struck of Robert Burns than almost any other Scot and the exhibition features some of the finest examples. These were produced to mark the important events of Burns' life and memory, for example the centenary of the poet's birth in 1759 and the centenary of the publication of his poems in 1886. Other sections touch on his religion and freemasonry.

Also on display are examples of the special £2 piece issued in the United Kingdom this year to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Burns' death. A gold proof, silver proof and other items relating to the design and production of the new coin, loaned by the Royal Mint, are on show. It runs from 15th August 2009 until 30th January 2010 and will be closed from 25 December 2009 until 4 January inclusive for the Christmas and New Year holiday. Find out more here.

From Tuesday 1 December 2009, the Hunterian Museum main hall will be closed to the public to allow for the installation of a new roof.

The Museum entrance gallery and adjoining Hunter and Euing rooms will remain open and our programme of education classes will take place in the Kelvin Gallery, within the Hunterian Museum.

The Museum main hall is expected to re-open in April 2011.

The Hunterian Art Gallery, The Mackintosh House and Zoology Museum remain open as usual for this period. Find out more here.

Browse the Hunterian's collections from anywhere in the world on your iPhone! Digital Projects Officer, Ger Malcolm, and Electronics & Software Engineering student, Suhayb Amir Mahmood, developed the software, or "app", as part of a ten week summer project. The new service will allow users to explore 12 of the star objects from the Hunterian's collections. It also contains links to further online resources, updates on permanent displays, and notice of the popular Hunterian lunchtime talks.

Additionally the app will provide links to related Wikipedia entries, Facebook pages, Flickr pages and tweets on Twitter.

Ger said: "With the museum's imminent partial closure for roof renovation, I thought it might help keep visitors engaged and in touch, reaching out internationally using new digital media. Additionally, it was a challenging and cutting-edge joint project, both creatively and technically engaging."

Suhayb added: "It's thrilling to see it in the iTunes store, our very first app: imagined, developed, tested and submitted in 10 short weeks. We have already scheduled an update, with extras, all of it free. What a fantastic project, and a great opportunity."

Despite the closure of the Main Hall, the museum's entrance gallery and adjoining Hunter and Euing rooms will remain open to the public until the Main Hall reopens in April 2011.

You can find the Hunterian app in the iTunes store at http://tinyurl.com/yk7g4aq

This exhibition kicks off the year-long festivities to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the opening of the landmark Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed Glasgow School of Art building. This exhibition comprises of work by staff and students teaching and attending the school at the time the Mackintosh Building opened which in December 1909. Looking at all of the disciplines taught in 1909, the exhibition includes rarely seen paintings, drawings and textiles from the school's own Archive and Collections Centre, as well as pieces from Glasgow Museums, Hunterian and Aberdeen Art Galleries collections.

This exhibition runs 27 Nov 2009 - 6 February 2010 (closed for Christmas 24 December 2009 - 3 January 2010) in the Mackintosh Gallery. It is part of the Mackintosh 100 Festival.

An exciting new publication accompanies this exhibition. The Flower and the Green Leaf: Glasgow School of Art in the time of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, edited by Ray McKenzie, reveals for the first time the working life of GSA's iconic building during its formative years.

Modelling class at the Glasgow School of Art, 1910. Photo: Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections.

The Glasgow School of Art's revered collection of work by its most celebrated alumnus, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was recently awarded Recognition status by Museums Galleries Scotland.

The School of Art's Mackintosh collection comprises almost 300 items and provides an extensive retrospective of this important artist, designer and architect, including original designs for his best-known buildings including furniture for the Glasgow tea rooms at the beginning of the 20th century.

September 2008 saw the completion of phase two of The Glasgow School of Art's ambitious £8.7m Mackintosh Conservation and Access project with a number of new interior spaces created by Glasgow-based architects, ZM Architecture. This included the opening of an important Archives and Collections Centre (in the basement of the Mackintosh Building) that provides staff, students and members of the public with excellent new research/study facilities and the opportunity to consult the extensive archives and collections material held by the School. The Centre is complemented by the provision of three new environmentally-controlled archive and collections stores, also housed within the Mackintosh Building itself.

The other significant development as part of phase two of the project, and opened to coincide with Doors Open Week, saw the relocation of the previous Mackintosh Furniture Gallery from above the original Library to a new home in the building's fully accessible basement. A similar relocation of the Mackintosh Shop from the foyer of the Mackintosh Building to a former studio space previously occupied by an art materials store and the creation of a new Mackintosh Interpretation Centre complete the new public facilities. The GSA shop and Mackintosh Interpretation Centre are accessed via the School's Dalhousie Street entrance and the new Mackintosh Furniture Gallery has been incorporated into an enhanced guided tour programme run by the School's trading company, GSA Enterprises Ltd.

Work on the project begins again in June 2009 and phase three will see the completion of a new heating system, the introduction of new fire-suppression doors on the ground and first floors, repairs to the main staircase, along with a number of other subtle improvements to the interior fabric of the building. In the meantime, work continues on the conservation of the School's collections and archives covering areas such as plaster casts, Mackintosh furniture, art and paper and the institutional archive. Work here will be completed in 2010.

Click here for further details. Photos copyright Andrew Lee.

A University of Glasgow project, Touching Lives, has received £8000 from BBC Children in Need to help sensory impaired children enjoy the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery’s outstanding world class collections.

This innovative cross curricular programme will encourage children to identify areas of the collection that their sensory impaired classmates should not miss. They will work together to identify challenges and seek solutions to ensure that everyone has an equally inspiring, fun, educational experience with the collections.

Touching Lives will explore ways of enabling children with visual impairment to undertake the same class activities at the Hunterian as their sighted peers. The project will also help to improve communication and language skills for those children whose first language may not be English. By asking pupils to consider the needs of their fellow classmates we will be better able to find lasting solutions for any issues that are identified during the course of the project.

Find out more by clicking here.

Alexander Stoddart: Drawings and Models 23 May - 12 September 2009 This new display at the Hunterian Art Gallery is the first to be devoted to the work of Scottish sculptor, Alexander Stoddart. Stoddart, who was recently appointed Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland to the Queen, is one of Scotland's most thoughtful and at times controversial sculptors. He has an international reputation as a creator of monumental work. His achievements include major public monuments to David Hume, Adam Smith, and the recently unveiled James Clerk Maxwell, all in Edinburgh. This display focuses on the drawings and models that lie behind the finished work giving rare insight into the processes involved in the creation of his works. The often tiny "first thoughts" - expressed in notebook drawings and rapid terracotta studies, as well as full working maquettes and one-to-one scale studies - document the production process and the rigours of the actual making of a major piece. The display has been selected and scripted by the artist, and forms part of Homecoming 2009.

From 12 June, visitors to the Hunterian Art Gallery will have the rare opportunity to see some of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's remarkable prints. The new exhibition, Edvard Munch: Prints, is a major loan exhibition from the Munch Museum in Oslo and features 40 of his finest prints. This will be the most substantial display of Munch's prints in the UK in over 35 years.

The works on display have been chosen from throughout Munch's career and cover all the printmaking techniques he used. Amongst the masterpieces on show, the most iconic is the famous black and white lithograph of 'The Scream'. This will be the last chance for visitors in the UK to see the print, which is one of the world's most famous images. The print is on loan for the last time, and in future visitors will have to travel to Norway to see it.

For further information, visit the exhibition website.

To celebrate the recent opening of the Glasgow School of Art's new Archives and Collections Centre 15 design academics, researchers and technical staff from the school's acclaimed Department of Textiles have been invited to unlock and explore the conceptual and creative possibilities of reinterpretation and appropriation. This exhibition showcases a significant body of new work produced from the collaboration between Textiles staff and the school's world-class Archive and demonstrates the diverse range of approaches in contemporary textile design.

Awaken runs 24 January - 28 February 2009 in the Mackintosh Gallery at GSA. For further details, click here.

The museums of the University of Dundee and the University of St Andrews have been awarded a grant from the Royal Society in London as part of their Local Heroes initiative to celebrate the 150th anniversary next year of the birth of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Professor of Biology (later Natural History) at University College Dundee for 32 years and Professor of Natural History at the University of St Andrews for 31 years. As part of a year-long series of events there will be a series of public lectures, a joint exhibition and various special activities at the D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum in Dundee (pictured left) and the Bell Pettigrew Museum in St Andrews. A D'Arcy Thompson 2010 website will be launched soon - watch this space for details!

Remembering Dundee Royal Infirmary (December 2008) To mark 10 years since the closure of Dundee Royal Infirmary, the University of Dundee's Tayside Medical History Museum has unveiled a permanent Memorial Wall to the old hospital in the main concourse at Ninewells. It features the various commenorative plaques rescued from the walls of DRI along with artefacts and photographs from the museum's collection. Click here for further details.

Two new exhibitions will open at the Hunterian Art Gallery in December 2008 and January 2009. Both will include important works from the Hunterian permanent collection, which are seldom on display.

The Glasgow Boys: Drawings and Watercolours from the Hunterian Collection will take place in the Art Gallery focus space from 13 December 2008 - 16 May 2009. This beautiful small exhibition will display a selection of works by the Glasgow Boys, the informal grouping of artists who were inspired by progressive French painting of the day and produced some of the most decorative and adventurous painting in Scotland at the end of the 19th century.

The works on display feature drawings and watercolours that mainly belong to the second half of the artists' careers, when their early interest in rustic realism had been replaced by a commitment to decorative and aesthetic effect and a wider range of subject matter.

James McNeill Whistler: The Gentle Art of Making Etchings takes place from 23 January until 30 May 2009. This exhibition showcases an exciting research project, currently underway at the University of Glasgow's Department of Art History, in collaboration with the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Whistler's wide-ranging output included some of the most beautiful and influential etchings of the late 19th century. The project explores Whistler's creative processes through a detailed investigation of making, presentation and marketing and reveals the extraordinary complexity of the etchings through a detailed examination of subject-matter.

Admission to both exhibitions is free.

Click here to find out more.

Peter Ustinov in Dusseldorf The University's impressive sculpture of the actor and writer Peter Ustinov is currently on loan to the Filmmuseum in Dusseldorf for an exhibition entitled Peter Ustinov: Enfant Terrible & Gentleman. Normally on display in the Ustinov Room in Bonar Hall, it was sculpted by Enzo Plazzotta in 1968, the year Ustinov became the first rector of the newly independent university. The show in Germany covers Ustinov's entire career and runs 6 December 2008 - 22 February 2009. Plant Life The new exhibition in the Lamb Gallery highlights the University of Dundee's rich botanical collections. Plant Life features a selection from the 10,000+ plant specimens held within the University Herbarium, originally founded in the 1890s by Patrick Geddes, our first professor of botany. The exhibition also showcases a stunning collection of teaching charts dating back to the 1880s and almost certainly used by Geddes in his teaching. Beautifully designed in Germany and Switzerland, the diagrams of plant structures are like extraordinary works of abstract art. There are also old instruments from the Botany department and new artworks inspired by the world of botany. The exhibition will be on until 7 February - click here for details.

The Mackintosh Conservation and Access Project at GSA (September 2008)

As the second phase of the £8.5m Mackintosh Conservation and Access Project begins, the doors open on the Glasgow School of Art's new Archives and Collections Centre, redeveloped in phase one of the project.

This is the first of the Mackintosh Building's new spaces to open and is already welcoming a stream of visitors, students and members of the public alike, to access the broad range of material in the School's collection.

While retaining its historic integrity, the former antique modelling room has become a fully functional, dedicated space in which readers can access the rich, and often valuable, items in the School's vast archive. These items are now stored in new environmentally controlled facilities adjacent to the Centre.

The building work in the new furniture gallery, shop and tour reception has also been completed and the final fit-out is underway in advance of the opening in late September. From then on, the School's growing number of visitors will enter the building from Dalhousie Street to access the much enlarged shop and explore the interpretation area before seeing parts of the building previously hidden on the freshly extended tour route.

The expanded and more accessible Mackintosh Furniture Gallery, supported by the Hugh Fraser Foundation, will present pieces from the School's extensive furniture collection in a variety of settings and allow more of its incomparable collection to be on view than ever before.

Phase 2, running from July to October 2008, will focus on cosmetic improvements and timber and stone conservation work in the eastern wing of the building. These essential works include the reinstatement of an original collapsible screen that separates studios 38 and 39 that will finally be functional for the first time in decades.

Phase 3 of the project starts in July 2009 with the entire Mackintosh Conservation and Access project scheduled for completion in 2010.

September brings your last chance to see an exhibition of material from the university archives and art collection in the Pathfoot Building which celebrates 40 years of the University of Stirling. The photographs, documents, objects and artworks present a visual impression of the construction and growth of the campus. The material on display in the Crush Hall provides a flavour of university life since 1967 - the major events, institutional developments and changing fashions! We would like to thank the various university departments, former members of staff and alumni who have donated material to the university archives. These generous gifts have made this exhibition possible. You'll find more information about the university archives by clicking here. Meanwhile, the University's Art Collection Office has been involved in a new tourism campaign called Forth's Timeline. Under the headline "Unravel Scotland's History", the campaign encourages interest in Scottish history and culture by connecting 16 of the Forth Valley's museums, galleries and buildings through common themes. The team behind the campaign believes it will attract local visitors unaware of the rich variety of significant and fascinating places found all over the Forth Valley. It will also target overseas and short break holidaymakers interested in exploring over 2000 years of Scottish history. During August and September, the Forth's Timeline Exhibition Bus takes the campaign on the road, using real objects from the museums and galleries to help history come alive and will be at Stirling University from 23rd to 25th September and will be located outside the Pathfoot Building. You can find out more about the campaign here.

The Congress of the European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences is to be held in Edinburgh this year from 17 - 21 September. The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is hosting the event, which will include visits to medical collections held by other UMiS members.

The theme of this year's congress is The Body: Simulacra and Simulation - models, prosthetics and interventions. Models in wax or plastic, wood or metal, plaster or papier-mache are held in almost every medical museum in the world; while the development of surgical interventions and prosthetics has also led to a range of materials being used to replicate and imitate external and internal parts and movements of the body. The congress will explore aspects of the use, culture, history, art and manufacture of models, prosthetics and surgical interventions. It is hoped that the conference will be the catalyst for the development of a European-wide electronic database of models and prosthetics held in medical collections.

For further information, click here.

Successful Opening for New Zoology Museum (September 2008)

In May the University of Dundee's Zoology Museum re-opened in a new home in the Carnelley Building. New displays were created and there are now far more specimens on show. Following a hugely successful public opening event on 5 May, the museum was open to the public on Friday afternoons during the summer vacation, and proved very popular with visitors. Further open days are planned for the winter months, and the museum continues to be open by appointment during term time. Click here for more details.

Boucher & Chardin: Masters of Modern Manners opens at the Hunterian Art Gallery on 24 September 2008. This new exhibition has been developed by the Hunterian in conjunction with The Wallace Collection, London, where it was on display until 7 September 2008. This beautiful and ground-breaking show will feature approximately 30 exhibits including paintings, drawings, prints and decorative art objects but central to the show are two of the greatest French paintings of the eighteenth century: the iconic 'Lady Taking Tea' by Jean-Siméon Chardin and François Boucher's 'Woman on a Daybed'. Chardin's 'Lady Taking Tea' comes from the Hunterian collection and was recently voted one of Scotland's most popular paintings by readers of The Herald newspaper. Boucher's 'Woman on a Daybed' is on loan from the renowned Frick collection in New York and is on display in Britain for the first time in 70 years. Also, for the first time since the eighteenth century, 'Lady Taking Tea' will be re-united with its likely pendant, Chardin's 'The House of Cards' which was recently acquired by an English family trust. Further genre paintings by both Boucher and Chardin and their contemporaries will also be on display. Visitors to the Hunterian will be able to enjoy a number of loans exclusive to the Glasgow show. Highlights include another important masterpiece by Boucher, 'Woman Fastening her Garter' from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the National Gallery of Scotland's charming drawing of a 'Group at Tea' by Marcellus Laroon, a delightful Chinese pagoda of a smiling god from the Burrell Collection, and a selection of oriental decorative art objects and prints from the Hunterian's own collections. Visitors will also have the chance to enjoy an additional room dedicated to prints after Boucher and Chardin. Boucher & Chardin: Masters of Modern Manners is at the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, 24 Sept-13 Dec 2008.

Also on show currently is Mackintosh Re-interpreted: Original Sketches to Digitally Created Fabrics. This pioneering display presents new interpretations of Mackintosh's textile designs which have been developed through an innovative combination of state-of-the art technology and archival research.

Mackintosh's textile designs are largely unknown. He took up commercial textile design later in his career to supplement his income after architectural and design commissions diminished. In post-war Britain, manufacturers adopted a new and progressive attitude to design and Mackintosh's work is considered by some to be in the forefront of British textile design of the period. The designs were not all in finished form ready to go to print but were sketches, often with various renditions and colours on the same piece of design work. They were executed in watercolour giving subtle graded effects not possible or intended to be reproduced with the printing techniques then available. Those sold, principally to Foxtons and Seftons, would have been modified before printing to eliminate the variations of colour and clarify the linearity of the designs. Commercial interest in Mackintosh's textile designs ceased until the mid 1970s when Heals, working with the University of Glasgow, and The Glasgow School of Art developed a number of commercial options, working to enlarged scale and including contemporary colourways. Subsequent translations were produced by Cassina, Hidden Road Studio, and Bute Fabrics. None of these initiatives delivered textiles as Mackintosh would have imagined them, particularly in terms of the printing technique, scale of reproduction and quality of fabric.The flexibility of digital print technology now makes it possible to produce alternative valid interpretations. Application of this new technology and knowledge has been pioneered at the Centre for Advanced Textiles, The Glasgow School of Art, and reintroduces the historic textile designs into current production capabilities. This display presents original Mackintosh textile design sketches from the Hunterian and digitally generated textile designs that are re-interpretations of the original Mackintosh sketches. The display is supported by digitally printed samples of the colour-matching experiments along with visual documentation of the process of employing a Colour Management System (CMS) in digital textile design and printing. It is also supported by previous re-interpretations of the Mackintosh textile designs produced by Bute Fabrics and Cassina. Mackintosh Re-interpreted is at the Hunterian Art Gallery from 5 September until 6 December 2008. For further information on both exhibitions, click here.

Following on from the bicentenary celebrations, the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow in association with the Institute of Art History presents a public conference on "William Hunter and the Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting". The conference will take place 3 - 5 September and further details can be found here.

The historic collections of the University of St Andrews are a vital part of the heritage of Scotland's oldest university. The Museum Collections Unit exists to manage and preserve the 8 Registered collections in its care and to make these collections accessible. A new University Museum - MUSA (Museum of the University of St Andrews) - is currently under development on The Scores in St Andrews. MUSA will consist of four exhibition galleries on the ground floor, a first-floor education space, the Learning Loft, and an exterior Viewing Terrace. An active programme of education and lifelong learning events is planned and MUSA is due to open in August 2008.

Two MUSA Internship posts have been created as museum 'apprenticeships' and will include training as well as hands-on experience. The successful candidates will be expected to spend one third of their time based in MUSA, carrying out Front of House and operational duties, with the remainder of their time devoted to the area they are specialising in - either collections management or learning and access.

The closing date for applications has now passed.

New Hunterian Exhibitions (May 2008) A Renaissance Master and Rubens to Mackintosh The strength and quality of the Hunterian art collections will be celebrated this summer with two new exhibitions. Rubens to Mackintosh: Drawings from the Hunterian Art Gallery opens on 1 May and, as the title suggests, features drawings by great artists. To complement Rubens to Mackintosh there will also be a smaller display of prints on show by the Renaissance artist Francesco Mazzola (1503-1540) known as Parmigianino. A Renaissance Master: Prints by Parmigianino opens on 28 April in the Hunterian Art Gallery Focus Gallery. Because of their sensitivity to light, works on paper are stored in special conditions. This means that they are not on public view very often, and these exhibitions will give visitors a rare chance to see some very special drawings and prints. For further information, click here.

The Art College members of UMiS, in association with Edinburgh College of Art, the Royal Scottish Society and the Scottish Society for Art History, are holding a study day on 31 May looking current projects involving their collections and new research into the history of art education in Scotland. Attendance is free but places must be booked - for further details, click here.

Earlier in the year UMiS members were asked to provide facts and figures about their activities to use as comparative performance indicators. The information includes visitor figures, numbers of items on display, loans to other museums, teaching and research use of the collections and staff and budget details. This information is now available online as an Excel file - please click here to download.

Congratulations to the University of St Andrews, three of whose collections have gained Recognition status in the latest announcement from SMC. The Chemistry, Heritage and Scientific Instruments Collections have all been granted Recognition.

Scotland & Medicine are delighted to announce that the book Anatomy Acts: How we come to know ourselves has won both The Royal Society of Medicine Library Prize for Medical Book of 2007 and the prize for the New Non Clinical Medical Book, 2007. This is the first time that a non-clinical book has won Medical Book of the Year.

The 2007 Awards were presented at the Royal Society of Medicine on 14th November. The judges described Anatomy Acts as 'an original book of extraordinary scholarship....sumptuously illustrated, carefully presented, and far-reaching in its perspective'. The inter-disciplinary nature of the book was also widely praised. At the ceremony, Professor Gareth Williams, Chair of the judges, when announcing the winner, said Anatomy Acts was "an extremely skilful and engaging blend of medical and social history, art and philosophy, well written and illustrated throughout to a high standard; an outstanding book in every respect."

Further details about the awards can be found here. For more on Scotland & Medicine, click here.

A further seven museum collections across Scotland have been identified as being significant to the nation under the Recognition Scheme. They include the entire collection owned by the University of Aberdeen. For further details, click here.

Most University Museums have yet to hear the results of their Accreditation applications, but the Robert Gordon University Collections, which are part of the RGU Library, have been awarded Provisional Museum Accreditation for 12 months.

A new exhibition space (see above) recently opened in the Georgina Scott Sutherland Library at Garthdee. This provides much needed space for the display of 2-D exhibits and marks another step towards Full Accreditation.

The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow is currently celebrating its Bicentenary and special exhibitions and events are in full swing. The refurbished and redisplayed Hunterian Museum was reopened to the public by Gordon Rintoul on 23 May, which would have been founder Dr William Hunter's 289th birthday! A special family day called 'The Big Birthday Bash' took place on 26 May and attracted record numbers of visitors, who came along to enjoy the new displays, plus clowns, balloons, face painting, music and art activities. The new Museum displays have proved extremely popular with visitors, who are amazed at the transformation. The Entrance Gallery, and two smaller rooms at either side, have been completely redisplayed and now contain a permanent exhibition dedicated to Dr William Hunter. Also in the Entrance Gallery is a new display called 'Weird and Wonderful' and some star objects from the collection. The Museum Main Hall is almost unrecognisable in comparison to its previous layout and content. Ranging from 'Animal Architecture' to 'World Culture', the new display themes demonstrate the diversity and range of the Hunterian collections. Although some old favourites, such as the Hunterian's famous Egyptian Mummy, remain on display, the new themes have allowed many fabulous objects to be introduced for the first time. Items from the Zoology collection are now on display in the 'Animal Architecture' and 'Biodiversity' sections, and in 'World Culture', the rare and visually stunning 'Map of the Whole World' produced by Ferdinand Verbiest in 1674 for the Chinese Emperor Kangxi is not to be missed. Treasures from the Hunterian coin cabinet are on show throughout the new displays with star items including the internationally famous portrait coin of Cleopatra, and a remarkable series of Roman gold coins.

In the Hunterian Art Gallery a new exhibition, "My Highest Pleasures": William Hunter's Art Collection, celebrates the Bicentenary by showcasing Hunter's own art collection. This exhibition separates the fine art from Hunter's other collections and demonstrates his remark that the arts were his 'highest pleasures'. The exhibition includes examples from Hunter's beautiful collection of old master paintings, as well as sections on the Grand Style, popular culture of the time, and Hunter as a teacher of anatomy to artists. The exhibition has received excellent reviews, including 5 stars from The Scotsman's art critic (and former Chair of UMiS), Duncan MacMillan. The Bicentenary celebrations continue for the rest of 2007, with many exciting events to look forward to. Family activities in July and August include 'Hands On!' object handling sessions, and 'Science Box' science demonstrations. Special screenings of the film 'A Night at the Museum' will take place in August in the University's Gilmorehill G12 cinema. In November, a conference titled 'William Hunter and the Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting' will explore Hunter's role and place as a collector in eighteenth century Europe. The Hunterian had something else to celebrate in July, when it was officially recognised under the Scottish Executive Recognition Scheme as having a collection of national significance. The primary benefit to the University and to the Hunterian in gaining Recognition for its collections is independent endorsement at a national level of the quality and importance of its collection. The award has also been a great boost to staff morale, and gives a wonderful sense of validation to a team which is very proud of the collection for which they are custodians. For further information about Hunterian Bicentenary exhibitions and events, click here.

The Hunterian at Glasgow University was chosen as the venue to announce the winners of the first round of the Recognition of Significance Scheme administered by the Scottish Museums Council on behalf of the Scottish Executive. Ten museums have achieved Recognition status, three of which are in universities.

The three university winners are:

• the Entire Collection cared for by Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow
• the Entire Collection cared for by Surgeon’s Hall Museum, Edinburgh
• the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments cared for by University of Edinburgh

The new Recognition Scheme celebrates, promotes and invests in nationally significant collections held outside the nationally run museums and galleries around the country. Minister for Culture Linda Fabiani announced the first collections from the new Recognition Scheme at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow. She said:

"This is a landmark occasion for Scotland's museums and galleries and the wonderful collections they display. These ten collections are not only significant to the communities in which they are located but to Scotland as a whole. I am glad to support this Recognition Scheme and look forward to seeing increased public access to these collections of national significance."

You can find out more by clicking here.

At £100,000, the Gulbenkian Prize for museums and galleries is the UK's largest single arts prize. Although not the winner, the Scotland & Medicine partnership was one of ten museum projects nominated for the prize.

Scotland & Medicine: Collections & Connections brings together the leading medical museum, archive and library collections in Scotland. Several UMIS members are partners in the project - the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Dundee, the University of Glasgow, the University of St Andrews and the University of Strathclyde.

The project was started in 2004 to promote Scotland's significant role in the history of medicine. Its most high profile achievement has been the Anatomy Acts touring exhibition, the most ambitious of its kind ever attempted in Scotland. Versions of the show have been seen at the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews, and currently at the Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde as the final venue on the tour later this year.

Other outputs of Scotland & Medicine include two websites (www.scotlandandmedicine.com and www.anatomyacts.co.uk) and a series of publicity leaflets highlighting medical history in different parts of the country, which have also had considerable involvement by the university museums.

GeoSciences: Geology Museum Collections Management Intern

As curator for the Geology Museum collections, you will be (with appropriate training and mentoring) responsible for all aspects of management of the collection. This will include storage, display, handling and interpretation. The post will have a strong training ethos - through structured and information learning, networking, and shadowing opportunities. You will also assess the 'Teaching' and 'Museum' collections, and recommend as to whether there is a need for transfer between these collections. The appointment will be for one year. This post is part-funded by the Scottish Museums Council.

Fixed Term: 1 year

The closing date for this post has now passed.

2007 is a special year for the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow. Having first opened to the public in 1807, the Hunterian is 200 years old this year, making it Scotland's oldest public museum.

Bicentenary events focus on the two main sites of the present day Hunterian - the purpose built Hunterian Art Gallery, which incorporates the world-famous Mackintosh House, one of Glasgow's most popular visitor attractions, and the Hunterian Museum, located within the University's Gilbert Scott Building.

The Museum is currently undergoing a transformation, creating exciting new displays in the Entrance Gallery and Main Hall. These new permanent exhibits will highlight the range and scale of the Hunterian collections in a more modern way.

In the Main Hall, the collections are undergoing a complete redisplay. Alongside some old favourites, objects will be introduced which have never been on public display before. The new 'Weird and Wonderful' display in the Entrance Gallery will feature extraordinary items from the collection which are either unusual themselves or have unique personal stories. In the Entrance Gallery, a new display dedicated entirely to the Hunterian's founder, Dr William Hunter, is in production.

In summer 2007, a new exhibition in the Art Gallery will celebrate the Bicentenary by showcasing Hunter's art collection. This temporary exhibition will separate the fine art from Hunter's other collections and will include examples from Hunter's beautiful collection of old master paintings.

As well as the new displays and exhibitions, an associated events programme features a special launch event, new Museum and Gallery tours, family days, talks and lectures.

For the latest information about the 2007 programme, visit our website.

Simon Carroll is known for his exuberant, often challenging ceramic vessels. Uniquely expressive, his pots deconstruct the history of ceramics, particularly Staffordshire slipware. He draws inspiration from an eclectic range of sources including Elizabethan ruffles, sombreros, Cornish wind-farms, Henri Matisse and his own experience of working on the land. His work is the subject of the latest exhibition at the Collins Gallery at Strathclyde University, which runs 17 February - 24 March 2007.

Intuitively constructed, the vessels are anarchic, breaking all conventions of the highly finished form. Part thrown and part hand-built; walls crack, bases list, classic lines are pummeled, references deliberately clash, surfaces are inconsistent. Equally informed by his print-making and large-scale raked beach drawings, mark-making is a vital element of the artist's language. The build up of surfaces, which are richly painted or dripped with slips and glazes, are energetic and engage with a surreal wit. Carroll's vessels challenge the boundaries of ceramic practice, and move towards sculptural form whilst indulging in the sheer joy of making.

For further information, please contact Laura Hamilton at the Collins Gallery on 0141 548 4145 or collinsgallery@strath.ac.uk

Professor Pamela Robertson, Senior Curator of Whistler and Mackintosh at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, has recently been appointed as a Governor of the Glasgow School of Art.

IN 2006, 24 new Graduates of Gray's School of Art were awarded a University Collections Purchase Prize of £500 for a work from their Degree Show selection.

A presentation was held at the School on 23 June and the Graduates who were able to attend are pictured with the Robert Gordon University Collections team of George Cheyne, Collections Assistant and Justin Parkes, Collections Curator.

In honour of the 40th anniversary of Heriot-Watt achieving University status by Royal Charter, the Conservation Services Branch of the National Archives of Scotland have conserved the Charter and its seal and rehoused them in a custom built case. The University gratefully acknowledges this support by colleagues in the National Archives of Scotland who have undertaken this work in recognition of their unique and continued collaboration with Heriot-Watt University School of Engineering and Physical Sciences. The charter will be displayed at University Museum and Archive as part of a 40th anniversary exhibition.

This touring exhibition celebrating the career of internationally renowned textile designer Bernat Klein enjoyed a successful run at the High Mill, Heriot-Watt University, Scottish Borders Campus from 18 April- 26 May 2006. The exhibition, curated by Lesley Jackson for The Bernat Klein Trust, featured over 50 items from the University Textile collection. A further display of items from the University collection had been shown in the main reception. The exhibition was planned to tour to Paisley Museum and Art Gallery in the Autumn.

The University has received a Scottish Museums Council grant towards an intensive collections management project to rehouse the shawl collection at the Scottish Borders Campus. The project involves updating catalogue records, condition reports and digital photography, before rolling each shawl onto purpose built racking. The collection comprises fine examples of early paisley shawls in wool and silk dating from c.1790-1860s. Though most were made in Edinburgh as luxury items echoing the designs of Kashmiri shawls and using imported fine wools and silks, the collection includes shawls from Turkey and Kashmir.

Mark Parker and staff and students of the School of Textiles and Design have designed and painted the University's contribution to the Edinburgh Cow Parade: Watt a Clever Cow, which is currently on display in Festival Square. The cow will be the latest addition to the museum collection and it will be displayed at the University's Edinburgh Campus after the parade ended on 23 July.

On Saturday 3rd December at 3pm, you are invited to join Pat Fisher, Principal Curator for an informal discussion exploring the current exhibitions and past successes of 2005 at the Talbot Rice Gallery. Followed by a Christmas treat of mince pies and mulled wine in the Georgian Gallery. To book call 0131 650 2211. For more information on the three exhibitions click here.

This report can be viewed online at http://www.culturalcommission.org.uk/cultural/files/Final%20Report%20June%2005.pdf

A Closer Look at Nursing (March 2005)

Look Closer is the title of the current Medical History Museum exhibition on the history of nursing in Tayside and Fife. The exhibition is on display in the main foyer of the University of Dundee Medical School at Ninewells Hospital - for further information, click here.

Founded in 1985, Quilt Art is a unique group of artists whose innovative work extends the boundaries of quiltmaking. The new touring exhibition Quilt Art Twenty celebrates the group's 20th anniversary. It can be seen at the Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, 2 July-20 August.

On Saturday 2 July the gallery will host a seminar at which 15 members of the group will be present to discuss their work. To book a place, please contact the gallery on 0141 548 4145 or 0141 548 2558.

A diary of forthcoming exhibitions and events in European University Museums is now online at http://www2.hu-berlin.de/kulturtechnik/sammlungen.php?show=events. You can add details of your own events by e-mailing Cornelia Weber at Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik on weber@mathematik.hu-berlin.de

The Charles Rennie Mackintosh exhibition curated by Peter Trowles, which opened in Port Vendres in June 2004 as part of the Scottish Executive's Entente Cordiale celebrations, ended its successful tour in Perpignan in February 2005. Such has been the positive reaction to Glasgow's commitment to the initial event that a number of further initiatives will hopefully see long-term cultural links develop between GSA (the Glasgow School of Art), the City of Glasgow and the Roussillion region.

Most recently, the authorities in Collioure (next door to Port Vendres) have set up a bursary to host two Scottish landscape artists who will be provided with rent-free accommodation, plus the opportunity to exhibit and sell their work locally. The first recipients, both GSA graduates, are Sarah Lacey (Visual Communication, 2001) and Nicol Wheatley (Drawing & Painting, 1993). The bursaries begin in May 2005 and it is hoped that this will become an annual event.

This is a one-day symposium at the Hunterian Art Gallery devoted to the history of collecting in Scotland, organised by the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow and the Scottish Art Research Seminar.

The symposium takes place on 10 June, and is inspired by the forthcoming bi-centenary of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery. Our aim is to look at notable eighteenth-century institutional and private collections in Scotland. Issues to be addressed include: how did William Hunter's collection compare to those of his contemporaries in Scotland? How were these collections exhibited, presented, and disseminated and to whom? Is there a notion of a Scottish history of collections that needs to be addressed?

To reserve a place at the symposium, please email viccy.coltman @ ed.ac.uk

That's the theme of a one-day University Museums Group seminar which will take place at the Women's Library in London on 10 June. At the time of writing there are papers confirmed from Manchester Museums, the Ashmolean, University of Reading Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Surrey Institute of Art and Design Craft Study Centre and University of East Anglia. Check out the latest details on the UMG website.

£250k awarded jointly by the Wolfson Foundation and the Wellcome Trust in the final round of the ReDiscover Fund, will enable the Hunterian to create a new display on the history of medicine in Glasgow to complement Lord Kelvin - Revolutionary Scientist which opened in November 2004. Provisionally entitled A Healing Passion it is being developed by Dr Paula Summerly and Mrs Maggie Reilly with a network of specialist advisors. The design will echo that of the Kelvin display though with few interactives. A lift will also be installed to improve access to the new displays.

Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the EU Commission rounded off a visit to Glasgow during which he addressed the closing session of the European University Association Convention by visiting the Hunterian Art Gallery and the Mackintosh House.

The Scottish Museums and Galleries Working Group has responded to the first stage of the Cultural Commission's Consultation with a bold and exciting submission. Key to this submission is the recommendation that a new partnership body is formed, which would see national and non-national museums working together towards a shared vision. This Scottish Museums Partnership would be supported by a strategic agency. The submission proposes that the agency would build on the expertise currently held by SMC, and that the Partnership as a whole would build on and reflect the expertise of the organisations in the Museums and Galleries Working Group - National Museums of Scotland (NMS), National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), Association of Independent Museums (AIM), Group for Scottish Local Authority Museums (SLAM), Glasgow Museums, SMC and ourselves - UMIS.

To see a pdf file of the response, click here.

In the 2004 Spending Review, the Chancellor Gordon Brown announced a long-awaited change regarding the VAT payable by university museums. The full text from the Review is as follows:

"Visits to national museums that used to charge for entry were 72 per cent higher in the year to December 2003 than in the year to December 2001, when the Government introduced free access. In the light of this success, and following the recommendation of the Goodison Review Securing the Best for Our Museums: Private Giving and Government Support 1, the Government announced in Budget 2004 that it would consider extending the free access commitment for the main national museums and galleries to university museums. The Government has now announced its intention to extend the policy of promoting free access, and the Value Added Tax (VAT) refund scheme that helps deliver it, to university museums. This will allow eligible university museums to reclaim their input VAT, as they would be able to do if they charged output VAT on admission charges. DCMS will publish a full list of eligible institutions, and legislation to amend the VAT scheme will be brought forward by the end of 2004. This Spending Review also provides for national museums to maintain free access."

More news as we get it!

The University of Dundee Museum Services are co-curating an exhibition at McManus Galleries in Dundee celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Patrick Geddes, pioneer botanist, ecologist, regionalist and town planner.

Entitled The Artist & the Thinker - John Duncan & Patrick Geddes in Dundee, the exhibition examines the relationship between Patrick Geddes and the Celtic revival painter John Duncan, examining the part that Dundee played in their lives. Duncan was a central figure in Dundee's blossoming art scene at the turn of the last century, while Geddes spent 30 years as Professor of Botany at University College Dundee. Although much has been written on both men, this exhibition (and the publication that accompanies it) is the first to look in detail at the influence that the city of Dundee was to have on their extraordinary careers.

Geddes and Botany students at University College Dundee (Courtesy of University of Dundee Archive Services)

The exhibition runs 27 November 2004 - 30 January 2005. On 22 January a one-day conference will be held as part of the exhibition on Art in Dundee c 1900 - click here for details. To find out more about the exhibition, click here.

Lord Kelvin: Revolutionary Scientist This is a new permanent display based around the life and work of Lord Kelvin - Glasgow's greatest scientist. An exciting mix of hands on activities, original scientific instruments, demonstrations and computer-generated images bring this new display to life. Visitors will have the chance to investigate how solving problems in physics 150 years ago led to practical inventions which have transformed all of our lives today.

Curator of Museum Services Matthew Jarron is currently preparing two major exhibitions for later in the year. In August the Lamb Gallery will play host to an important retrospective of the Dundee painter David Foggie (the first in over 25 years). In November, the McManus Galleries are hosting The Artist & the Thinker, an exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Patrick Geddes, concentrating on his work in Dundee and his relationship with the Celtic revivalist painter John Duncan.

Exhibitions currently on show include Past & Present - Discovering Oriental Cultures, a unique collaboration with Chinese and Korean students studying at the University's Centre for Applied Language Studies.

The School's Mackintosh Curator, Peter Trowles was awarded a grant from the Scottish Executive to curate a Charles Rennie Mackintosh exhibition in Port Vendres, France as part of the official programme of events marking 100 years of the Entente Cordiale.

Mackintosh had lived in the small coastal town of Port Vendres (close to the Spanish border) during the final years of his life and here he painted a number of watercolours depicting the local towns, villages and surrounding Catalonian countryside. In addition to the temporary exhibition (that opened in June), an accompanying Mackintosh trail was also established and it is hoped that the associated publicity of both exhibition and trail will generate sufficient interest to justify establishing a permanent Mackintosh display within the town.

The exhibition itself is due to travel on to Marseille, Perpignan and possibly to Brussels later on in the year

The Mackintosh Trail at Port Vendres, France

In the summer, Glasgow School of Art finally submitted it application for Heritage Lottery Funds, in part to restore the fabric of the Mackintosh Building but also to provide additional facilities for the School's impressive collections and archives including a new public gallery and small visitor centre. If successful with its application, work is due to start in 2007 with completion set for 2009, the building's centenary.

Interest in Mackintosh and his famous art school building continues to grow and after being out of print since the early 1990s, the School in partnership with the publishers A&C Black reprinted Mackintosh Masterwork (edited by William Buchanan), This book remains the most authoritative text on the history of the building to date.

Partnership with all the other Mackintosh venues across Glasgow continues to prove very beneficial. With the help and support of Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, a unique Mackintosh travel ticket was recently launched in association with Strathclyde Passenger Transport and First Bus and an innovative IT project involving all the City's Mackintosh attractions is also underway.

Following the University Museums Group's launch of their long-awaited advocacy document for university museums, UMiS has created its own complementary document, which was successfully launched at a special event at the Hunterian Museum on Friday 18 June. Speaking at the event, Graeme Roberts (Chair of the Scottish Museums Council and Vice-Principal of Aberdeen University) said:

"The advocacy document we are launching today rightly reminds us that the primary responsibility for ensuring that Scotland's university museums are adequately supported rests with their governing bodies - who are, in effect, trustees of their collections, many of which have been accumulated over centuries from the gifts and benefactions of generations of scholars and alumni. Unless universities themselves are prepared to demonstrate the value and importance they attach to their museums and collections, why should we expect politicians - or Cultural Commissioners - to listen to our arguments? If the exciting vision exemplified in this document is to be realised, we need to start with ourselves."

Click here to read the press release.

To download a PDF version of the new document (189kb), click here.

To read a larger size text only version, click here.

From 10 June to 10 July, the Talbot Rice gallery at the University of Edinburgh is staging three exhibitions on aspects of health and art:

Main Gallery: Art Works in Mental Health
A national group exhibition funded by Pfizer that will provide an insight into personal perceptions of mental illness with two and three-dimensional visual art and creative writing.

Upper Gallery: Artesian Arts
An exhibition of work selected by the Talbot Rice Gallery from Artesian Art. Artesian, a Scottish artist led charity, exists to promote and provide a forum for outsider and raw arts. Recognising creativity as being inherent within everyone, Artesian strives to encourage Art for healing and empowering.

Round room: Karen Ingham - Anatomy Lesson
A photographic installation, the result of the artist's collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons at the University of Edinburgh and medical schools / anatomy museums in Padova, Dublin, London and Cardiff. Karen Ingham lecturers at the Swansea Institute of Higher Education and is head of the Centre for Lens-Based Arts.

PUBLIC EVENTS:

• Symposium exploring Art Works in Mental Health and Artesian Arts
  Wednesday 9 June, 10:30am-4:30pm - Booking highly recommended
• Wednesday Workshop Sessions
  Wednesday 16 & 23 June and 7 July, 2-4pm
• National Children's Art Days
  Primary Schools Workshops: Thursday 1 July, 10am-5pm - Booking essential
  Children's Saturday Workshops: Saturday 3 July, 11am-1pm or 2-4pm - Booking essential

All the events are free - To book spaces where required please contact the Gallery.

For further information, please contact Lottie Gerrard

Tel: 0131 650 2211 or email: lottie.gerrard@ed.ac.uk

In May the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh purchased at Christie's in London Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's clinical notebook for the term 1879/80. It will be on display at the College's Museum until 27 August.

At the front of the notebook there are 30 pages of case histories relating to patients Conan Doyle visited in the wards of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh as a student. At this time Doyle was assistant to Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh surgeon famed for his powers of observation and deduction, on whom Doyle based his literary detective Sherlock Holmes.

The clinical notes include 'Diseases of Women' taught by Prof Archibald Simpson, James Young Simpson's nephew.

At the back of the notebook is Conan Doyle's manuscript of 'The American's Story', his second ever story sold for publication (£1/10-). The tale centres on Alabama Joe (an indication that Joseph Bell may have inspired another of Conan Doyle's characters?) and the local watering hole Simpson's Bar.

The sparkle on the gem of this aquisition for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is a poem/piece of doggerel written by Doyle in pencil. It is a medical students perspective of the exams and the examiners at the RCSEd:

Come fill up your cups and your glasses again
Like wise philosophical medical men
I'll sing you a snatch of a song if I can
by the Royal College of Surgeons

Chorus

For there's many a pickle in jar and in pot
The Examining fogies there have got
And they want you to know the devil knows what
at the Royal College of Surgeons

Chorus

From the plantar arch to the circle of Willis
Above + below you'll have to show it
T'will make a vast difference if you don't know it
when at the College of Surgeons

Chorus

What makes up the Ganglion of Meckel I pray
How much Carbon does anyone breathe in a day
Oh thats the style they (l?)ubber away
at the Royal College of Surgeons

Chorus

Some things never change!

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is undoubtedly the largest and most prestigious wildlife photography competition in the world and is an unforgettable experience for all participants, visitors to the exhibition and wildlife lovers alike. The competition's aim is to find the best wildlife pictures showcasing the splendour, drama and variety of life on Earth. It also aims to highlight the artistry involved in wildlife photography and encourage a new generation of photographers to produce visionary and expressive interpretations of nature. It invites entries from amateur and professional photographers of all ages from across the world and the judges include key figures from wildlife and photography arenas. The images in this exhibition at the University of Glasgow are the winning entries taken from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition organised by BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum in London.

Phase 1 of the SCF-funded project "Scottish Textile Heritage Online" is now complete. Led by Heriot-Watt University, and also involving Dundee and Glasgow Universities, Glasgow School of Art, Paisley Museum & Art Galleries and Scottish Borders Museum Service, the project has created a pilot web-based database of Scottish textile collections, which is online at www.scottishtextiles.org.uk

We have a vacancy for a temporary Project Assistant to co-ordinate the relocation of the Polish School of Medicine Collection, part of the holdings of the University of Edinburgh, from the Erskine Medical Library, George Square to the Chancellor's Building at the Royal Infirmary Library (RIL), Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Little France.

The post is tenable for 4 months only and the relocation must take place by the end of June 2004.

Previous experience or knowledge of the museums/galleries environment would be an advantage although other appropriate relevant experience will be considered.

The post is offered on CN3 grade, (salary scale£13,547-£15603 per annum) and may be held on a secondment basis where appropriate.

For further particulars, please click here.

Closing date is 17 February 2004. Please quote reference Lib2004/01.

As a result of retirement this innovative, forward looking unique Museum seeks to appoint a new Museum Assistant. As a sole worker with appropriate support, the postholder will be required to staff the Museum in the afternoons and offer a range of services to visitors, as well as helping with administrative tasks.

The successful applicant will have excellent communication skills. Previous customer service experience is an essential requirement for this post. A general knowledge and interest in social work and social history is desirable, as is some knowledge of museum operations

Hours: 12.5 per week, 14.00 to 16.30 Monday to Friday

Pay: £4.89 per hour

Applications to Phil Hogan, Human Resources Department, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA

For more on the Museum, click here.

Closing date Friday 6th February

The 2004 exhibition programme at the Collins Gallery (University of Strathclyde) opens with a rather unusual exhibition...

In the Water Closet Workshop familiar objects change into the unexpected; the domestic, ready-made and infinitely familiar WC is transformed into a work of art!

The exhibition features a collection of artworks produced from toilets, sinks and assorted sanitaryware by 14 international artists. An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, which runs until 14 February.

To mark the opening of an exhibition by Merlin James entitled Easel Painting, a symposium is being held at the Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh on Friday 5th March.

The Symposium will explore the much-rumoured resurgence of painting, and ask exactly what kinds of experience painting offers to viewers. Amid an increasingly frenetic art 'industry' in which works of art are grist to the mills curators, critics, investors, academics and gallerists, the symposium will ask what might be the most rewarding ways of 'using' painting. What are the qualities unique to painting as an art form, and are they best experienced in an interdisciplinary or against an informed sense of painting's own traditions?

Speakers will include Merlin James, Alex Pollard, Dr Neil Mulholland, Simon Wallis and Patrick Elliott.

Admission is free. To book seats please contact the Gallery - Tel: 0131 650 2211 or email: lottie.gerrard@ed.ac.uk

At Dundee University, Curator Matthew Jarron continues to stage a variety of displays and exhibitions around the campus and elsewhere. Among recent projects, the most notable is An Atmosphere of Culture, which saw highlights from the art collections on display in Perth Museum & Art Gallery as part of the 2003 Perth Festival of the Arts. A publication on the history of the collections has been written to accompany the show, and is available from the gallery. Exhibitions currently on show include Scottish landscape paintings (University Library), the history of Sunnyside Hospital (Medical History Museum, Ninewells) and a show marking the 50th anniversary of Duncan of Jordanstone College's Crawford Building on Perth Road (at Verdant Works).

News from the Collins (autumn 2003)

Glasgow Belongs to Me

Three years ago, Dr Helen Cargill Thompson very generously gifted the bulk of her extensive Fine Art Collection to the University of Strathclyde. Glasgow Belongs To Me brings together some of her favourite works; paintings, prints and drawings.

Dugald Cameron: Aspects of Scotland's Aviation

Dugald Cameron, former Director of Glasgow School of Art, has held a lifelong fascination for the art of engineering and in particular, railways and aviation. Over the past 25 years he has produced over seven hundred illustrations of events in Scottish aviation history.

Both exhibition can be seen at the Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde from 18 October to 15 November.

A horned head-dress with an eagle feather trailer in the collection of Marischal Museum is to be returned to the Blood Tribe in Canada. The head-dress was identified by members of the Blood Tribe during a visit to Aberdeen in November last year, after which they submitted a request for its repatriation.

Every summer members of the Blood Tribe's Horn Society conduct a ritual Sun Dance. For many years they have had three head-dresses and have been searching for the fourth, which was known to have been lost and which was thought to have gone overseas. Marischal Musuem has cared for the head-dress since the 1930s. It had been purchased along with a number of other items from the North American Plains in the 1920s by an Aberdeen woman. At this period a number of sacred items went missing from the Plains, which should not have been sold. Unfortunately, very little was known about the head-dress and it has not been on display in the museum for many years. Unlike some other repatriation claims, there was no dispute that the University of Aberdeen was the legal owner.

An expert panel set up by the University, including representatives from other museums in Scotland and Canada, considered the request carefully. They agreed that it was the head-dress for which the Blood had been searching and that it was of fundamental spiritual significance to them.

At a ceremony held in Marischal Museum on Monday 7 July, ownership of the head-dress will be transferred to the Blood Tribe's Mookaakin Cultural and Heritage Foundation, after which it will be taken to Canada. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Blood Tribe and the University will also be signed to help develop the links that have now been established.

The University has agreed not to make a replica or to publish photographs of the head-dress as the creation of multiple copies of sacred items is alien to the traditional Blood way of life and is seen as dangerous and offensive to themselves and to the Creator. In return, the Blood Tribe will put together a collection of material to represent their way of life and will present this to the University next year.

Neil Curtis, Senior Curator of Marischal Museum said, "Unlike many repatriation requests, this has been marked by understanding and friendship on both sides and has had a very positive outcome for us all."

Whistler 2003 Centenary 2003 is the centenary of the death of the internationally celebrated American-born painter, James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903). A wide-ranging programme of events is being held in 2003 in Glasgow, home of one of the finest collections of his work, to mark the anniversary. Find out more at the Whistler Festival website.

The Scottish Museums Council (SMC) and the Scottish Executive recently announced an award of almost £100,000 to the Hunterian in the second round of museum projects to benefit from the Strategic Change Fund.

The 'What Clicks?' project will be led by Jim Devine, the Hunterian's Head of Education and Digital Media Resources, and will review existing and potential capability, human and technological, within the museum sector in Scotland, in the use of ICT to increase public access and resulting learning opportunities to collections. In addition, the project will produce recommendations outlining how the museum sector in Scotland can best realise the potential of ICT for e-learning. The World Wide Web and other digital means (e.g. CD ROM) offer Scottish museums the opportunity to increase access for a wide range of new audiences and to promote new learning styles. In particular, opportunities are created for study by those physically remote from museum collections - from primary and secondary schools through to community and special needs groups, to self-directed lifelong learners. The Hunterian, working in collaboration with the University of Glasgow's Department of Computing Science, has been at the forefront of digital delivery of educational resources, having launched the first museum web site in Scotland back in 1995, and developing leading edge techniques for the digital presentation of cultural resources. Schools in Scotland and overseas regularly use the Hunterian's web resources, and email enquiries are dealt with from schoolchildren all over - from Barra to Brooklyn. This international aspect of the Hunterian's distance-learning activity has also led to a highly successful skills-sharing partnership with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. The Hunterian will work with a number of partners in Scotland and overseas, both within the museum sector and in education. Learning and Teaching Scotland will provide advice and guidance on educational uses of digital resources and e-learning and, through its management of the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) help promote and disseminate the project's outcomes. Small, independent museums will also play an important part including the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther. School and community partners will be drawn from local and remote areas including Dumbarton Academy, Cumbernauld Primary School, Castlebay Secondary School, Barra, Soroba Young Families Centre, Oban, and T.C. Williams High School, Alexandria, Va. Input on the US K-12 curriculum and reviews of best practice in the USA, will be provided through the Hunterian's long-standing partnerships with the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University.

ReDiscover Grant

ReDiscover - the science centre and museum renewal fund has awarded £225, 000 to the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow in the first of four funding rounds. ReDiscover - the science centre and museum renewal fund has awarded £225, 000 to the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery as part of a £3.8 million funding round to nine centres around the UK.

Dr Evelyn Silber, Director of Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, said, "We are delighted at receiving such a substantial amount in this first round of funding. The award will allow us to develop exciting top quality display with some hands-on activities for visitors to try. "Re-Discover Kelvin" will link Kelvin's extraordinary achievements as an innovator and teacher with our current experiences and the impact of science in the world around us, in communications for instance. We will be able to display our renowned collection of Kelvin's scientific instruments in a new and much more approachable way.

The collection of research and demonstration apparatus gathered together by Lord Kelvin is probably the most important single collection at the Hunterian since it includes apparatus used in his pioneering research into electricity, telegraphy and thermodynamics.

The development of ReDiscover Kelvin will include new lecture demonstration apparatus, associated education programmes and easier access to the exhibit.

The 2002 UMiS conference tackled the subject of research, and proved to be very successful. Most of the papers have now been published on this website - click here for details...

Five members of the Blood Tribe in Alberta flew to Scotland recently to visit the University of Aberdeen's Marischal Museum to investigate a full-length Indian head-dress in the Museum collections.

Every summer members of the tribe conduct a ritual Sun Dance. For many years the Tribe's Horn Society have used three sacred head-dresses during the Sun Dance and have been searching for a fourth, known to have been lost. They recently came to Aberdeen to determine if the head-dress in the Museum was the missing one.

Principal C Duncan Rice and Dr Alan Knox, Manager, Historic Collections were delighted to welcome members of the Horn Society, a tribal Elder, and his partner. Following the three-day visit, Dr Knox said: "The head-dress has been examined by members of the Horn Society and has been identified as the one they are seeking. A request for repatriation will now be submitted by the Society in collaboration with the Museum. Any return will have to be approved by the University Court. The Horn Society has successfully repatriated many of their sacred artefacts. This is the last one they have been seeking. We are extremely pleased that they have found this item that is very sacred and important to them."

Attempts were made to ban the Sun Dance in the early 1900s and many items went missing during the following decades. The head-dress was presented to the Museum in 1934 by Mrs A Bruce Miller. It was purchased in the 1920s in the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana, without the knowledge of the Horn Society. Since the 1970s, the Blood Tribe have managed to retrieve many of their sacred objects, strengthening their traditional culture and involving the present generation in caring for its future.

Randy Bottle, a member of the Horn Society, said: "We are very fortunate to have located the last of our sacred bundles. This will ensure that future generations can continue the practices and teachings, which are important to our people. We have developed a very positive relationship with the Museum and will be working with the Museum to strengthen the appreciation of our culture in Scotland."

Dr Knox added: "This is an excellent opportunity for the Museum (and the University) to develop working contacts with the Blood Tribe in North America and establish an ongoing relationship to the benefit of the University and the Blood."

Despite the lack of a permanent University Museum, the Curator of Museum Services Matthew Jarron continues to look for ways to display and make use of the collections wherever possible. The University's exhibition spaces are busier than ever following the huge success of the recent Painting in Dundee exhibition, on loan from the Fleming Collection in London. A follow-up exhibition based on our own collections (Dundee - the City in Art & Photography) was also a success, while outreach work continues with the recent exhibition Ocean's Dance at the Scottish Fisheries Museum, and the forthcoming An Atmosphere of Culture at Perth Museum & Art Gallery. Our current exhibition in the University Library is a collaboration with St Andrews University Museum Collections. Entitled Out of the Blue it features material from some of the coldest parts of the earth, including artefects and specimens relating to Nansen, Shackleton and other polar explorers.

Collections management continues with intensive cataloguing work on the medical collections at Ninewells Hospital, and new accessions ranging from 19th century physics instruments to the latest artworks by students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. The Museum Services website also continues to expand, most recently with the development of an online version of the Zoology Museum. Click here to see it.

At the Medical Museum, research has recently been published on the subject of the oldest painting in the University collections, a portrait of 16th century Dundee doctor David Kinloch. To find out more, click here. Meanwhile our medical curator (and former UMIS secretary) Laura Adam was present at the unveiling of the Millennium Tripytch Panel, a stunning work of art by the Dundee & East of Scotland Embroiderers Guild. Situated in the Medical School foyer, the work takes the form of a renaissance-style phramacy cabinet. Click here to find out more.

This academic year, we are fortunate to have seven volunteers, mainly postgraduate Museum and Gallery Studies students, undertaking projects on the collections. These range from the cataloguing of anatomical drawings to the auditing, cleaning and marking of silver and the production of a leaflet on the history of the St Mary's College area. These projects benefit both the Museum Collections office and the students themselves as the work is almost invariably of high quality and the volunteers gain valuable experience of museum work. Several publications are in progress. The Keeper, Professor Ian Carradice (who is now Head of the School of Art History, in addition to his other duties) has produced a detailed examination of a group of rare surviving caich balls, found in St Salvator's Chapel tower in the 1950s. The article, which focuses on the history of the sport in the University, the likely provenance of the balls and the results of the dye and textile analysis undertaken on them is to be published in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (PSAS) in 2003.

Portrait of George Buchanan, after Arnold van Brounckhorst?, 1580, oil on panel

The Curator, Helen Rawson has undertaken research on the two University-owned portraits historically identified as George Buchanan. She has discovered that one is in fact a portrait of Peter Jeannin, Finance Minister to Henri IV. The other may be more significant than previously thought. Clearly virtually identical to copies of a lost work by Arnold van Brounckhorst, it intriguingly bears the date of 1580, the year in which James VI authorised payment to Brounckhorst for Buchanan's portrait (the copies bear later dates). The painting is heavily over-painted and tests and examination by curators and conservators have proved inclusive. Her findings will be written up for publication. Helen is currently co-authoring a detailed guide book on St Salvator's Chapel, to be published in 2004. She has also produced an illustrated leaflet on the history and interior of the University's other chapel, St Leonard's Chapel, which proved popular on the recent open day. Finally, improvements to collections management are planned, with a new picture store under development.