Art Fund Curatorial Trainee Blogs

Second Blog by Jemma Craig, National Gallery Curatorial Trainee

January 2021

My final months at the National Gallery were busy, beginning with a courier trip in early January. This trip was to Bishop Auckland to collect a work from the last participating venue of the National Gallery’s 2019 Masterpiece Tour. Overseeing the de-installation and packing of Nicolas Poussin’s The Triumph of Pan (1636) at The Auckland Project was a great experience. It allowed me to represent the National Gallery in another institution and put my training into practice. It was also a brilliant opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the loans and courier processes from the perspective of my colleague from the National Gallery’s Art Handling department. I was also able to oversee condition-checking both at The Auckland Project, and once the painting had arrived safely back at the Gallery. It was so interesting to be part of all stages of this process, including co-signing initial condition-checks and completing a courier report.

Since my last update, I continued training at the National Gallery up until early March. Although moving to Southampton was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, my project with Southampton City Art Gallery has continued to be engaging despite not often being present on-site. I have been encouraged to research deeply and to get involved with all parts of producing an accompanying publication to the upcoming exhibition, Creating a National Collection: The Partnership between Southampton and the National Gallery (March – June 2021). This project is an opportunity to tell the story of the unique and fruitful relationship Southampton’s art gallery has enjoyed with the National Gallery in London throughout its entire history. This publication is an important adjunct to the project which developed over the lockdown and I have enjoyed working closely with my mentor, Susanna Avery-Quash, the National Gallery Senior Research Curator. I have begun to learn about many aspects of the process associated with producing a gallery publication, including copyright and image licensing – as well as writing fundraising proposals achieving funding for the publication to go to print.

Lockdown has also provided opportunities to attend worldwide online events, including those organised by organisations such as the American Alliance of Museums, and the Museums Association. This has helped me to gain a more global perspective on how the museum and gallery sector is faring in the current circumstances – and ways in which many institutions are increasing their output and seeking to engage more people online. In Southampton, I researched and recorded a short talk titled, ‘A Brief History of the Gallery with Jemma Craig’, which was a valuable opportunity to present some of my findings. I was also grateful to be included in training sessions with the Curatorial and Learning teams during this time.

 From September 2020, I was able to be on-site in Southampton and took the opportunity to scour the City Archives. I was also able to take part in hanging two external exhibitions and begin thinking about labels for the upcoming partnership exhibition in Spring 2021. I have begun to experiment with some of my own ideas for display involving paintings from both institutions’ collections. I look forward to the opportunities arising in the months ahead including planning events with Southampton’s Learning team.

Blog Post by National Gallery Curatorial Trainee, Corinna Henderson

January 2021

Within days of my intended move to the Graves Gallery in March 2020 the unimaginable happened and we were plunged into a national lockdown due to the outbreak of COVID-19. After preparing steadily for the transition, plans were halted, and the Graves closed its doors. The original plan to curate Untold Stories, a redisplay or temporary exhibition of the gallery’s 19th- century collection, focusing on the reinterpretation of traditional narratives, was abandoned and my future colleagues in Sheffield entered part-time furlough. I found myself working from home, in-between roles and locations. Although April – December 2020 was blighted by uncertainty and confusion, the unfolding experience gave me the opportunity to improve some invaluable life-skills: resilience, adaptability and patience.

I have continued to research and write about a selection of the Grave’s 19th-century collection, choosing to focus on twenty-five paintings that include portraiture, landscape, and Orientalist pictures. As I have a particular interest in women’s history and women artists, I particularly enjoyed looking at a portrait of the actress Mabel Beardsley (1871-1916), the sister of writer and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), by Jacques Emile Blanche (1861-1942), and Sheep in a Landscape (date unknown) by the French artist Rosa Bonheur (1882-1899), who was widely considered to be the most famous female artist of the 19th-century. My written entries will be added to the Graves’ database and will form the basis of various online content during the final six months of the traineeship, including a short exhibition, a public talk, and a short film exploring one of the paintings in depth.

Contributing to the Legacies of British Slavery project at the National Gallery was an unexpected highlight during the final months of 2020. A historic moment for the Gallery, the in-depth look at paintings and people in the collection who had links to the transatlantic slave trade, whether through the artist, sitter, patron, donor or a trustee, will form a significant new body of research. I was pleased to assist the Collections team with the task of collating new findings from the first phases of the project.

Looking ahead to 2021, I am now underway with an exciting number of curatorial tasks for Sheffield Museums whilst working towards newly planned online exhibition content. In January I compiled information on thirteen contemporary art works by British artists that are currently on long loan to Sheffield Museums and are soon be considered for the Cultural Gifts Scheme. It has been an exciting change to research painting, sculpture and video installation by living British artists. I have also begun research for an online exhibition that will look at Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 - 1762), the English aristocrat, writer and poet, whose portrait Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (c.1718) by Jonathan Richardson the Elder (1667 – 1745) is in the Graves collection. Most well-known for extensive travels in the Ottoman Empire and her appropriation of Turkish fashion, she was also an advocate for inoculation against smallpox. The exhibition will reveal more about her pioneering influence in 18th-century Britain, which challenged many social attitudes towards women. Although the Graves Gallery will remain closed for the remainder of the traineeship, I look forward to contributing to Sheffield Museums new online programme of events.