'Lost' artwork on display as community invited to free art classes
25 June 2021
Free drawing classes are taking place in Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ town centre this weekend, linked to a new joint exhibition at Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Museum featuring some of the Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ’s prize artworks.
Rubens to Sickert: The Study of Drawing is in the Sir John Madejski Gallery at Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Museum until 7th August. It explores how we learn to draw, and the lessons that drawing teaches. It is linked to Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Museum and the Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ’s joint history as home to an important regional art school, and explores the rich, wider history of drawing in modern British art schools.
The exhibition features rare artworks from the Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ’s art collection that are not often on public display, including a sketch of Maria di Medici, Queen of France, by 17th century artist Peter Paul Rubens, in a folio among the University’s archives. The Rubens sketch has only previously been displayed to the public once.
Key loans from national collections help tell crucial, missing and surprising parts of the story of drawing. The British Museum is loaning drawings by Henry Moore - who also has a little-known connections with the University, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1959 - Blair Hughes-Stanton, Leon Underwood and Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Professor of Fine Art, James Anthony Betts (1897-1980).
Betts was responsible for amassing the Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ’s master drawing collection in the 1950s. The Art Council Collection are contributing Rita Donagh’s 1971 Life Size. Donagh was a tutor at the University of Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ School of Art under Claude Rodgers in the 1960s.
Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Museum events
A range of free and exciting events are taking place in and around Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Museum this weekend and later this summer as part of the current Museums Partnership Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ exhibition.
Led by professional artists, the events include Urban Sketching and performances in front of the Museum to create drawings - some you can take an active part in, some just watch and enjoy - no experience required.
Visitors will be able to join workshops with 'Drawing Diversity' artist in residence, Saranjit Birdi who uses the whole body as an innovative drawing tool and explores issues of diversity in today’s intercultural society, and meet emerging artist duo Jerome. and Sae Yeoun Hwang in the gallery as they use play to explore drawing, otherness and power.
Please see Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Museum What's On for details: