Displaying Art in Domestic Settings

Historic house museums and galleries face the shared challenge of how to display their collections to the visiting public. Ensuring that these kinds of spaces are used to their best advantage – both practically and intellectually – is not always straightforward. Organisations like Gainsborough’s House, which are recognised as the birthplace or home of an artist, face the additional question of how to display and interpret that individual’s work in a space implicitly connected with their life, or what we know of their biography. Potential strategies may include the re­creation of period rooms or domestic studios to create an immersive visitor experience; alternatively, the historic setting may be approached more neutrally, as a more conventional museum or gallery space. This British Art Network seminar will bring together curators and academics who have had to deal with some of these issues in a variety of contexts, across an array of British art historical periods and disciplines. Confirmed speakers include Martin Myrone, Lead Curator pre­1800 British Art at Tate Britain; Michael Huijser, Executive Director of Rembrandt House, Amsterdam; Giles Waterfield, Independent author and curator; Kate Retford, Senior Lecturer in eighteenth and early nineteenth ­century art, Birkbeck; Kim Clayton ­Greene, PhD student, University of Melbourne, Australia; Jenny Hand, Director of the Munnings Museum; Nigel Walsh, Curator (Contemporary Art), Leeds Art Gallery.

The event programme is available to download via the link below: Displaying Art in Domestic Settings Programme (Gainsborough’s House).pdf