Printed images at the Barber Institute, University of Birmingham.

This webinar is FREE and run in conjunction with ArtsFest at the University of Wolverhampton. Booking is necessary and is available HERE.

ROBERT WENLEY: History and Highlights of the Barber Institute’s Print Collection This talk will introduce the Barber’s collection of prints and printed material. While relatively modest in size, numbering about 400 works this is, like the principal collection of paintings, rich in quality and diverse in range. It has similarly been steadily built up, until recently exclusively by purchase, since the gallery’s foundation in the early 1930s. It also functions primarily as a teaching resource, with the ambition of representing the various key practitioners, schools, periods, subjects and techniques of western European printmaking. Highlights include woodcuts and engravings by Albrecht Dürer, etchings by Rembrandt, Goya and Whistler, and German Expressionist prints by Beckmann, Nolde and Kollwitz, among many others. Robert Wenley is the Deputy Director: Collections and Research at the Barber Institute, with responsibility for the care, research and interpretation of the collections, including publications and the exhibitions programme. He was previously a curator at Glasgow Museums and the Wallace Collection, and is a member of the CPHC Steering Group.

 HELEN COBBY: The Printed Word: Image, Text and Meaning in European Prints This short talk introduces aspects of previous Print Bay Displays at the Barber Institute. One of these thematic displays explored the various ways in which text is used to provide meaning and content to historic visual images in the print medium. It considered the role of literary references in historical images, creative and calligraphic text, the significance of text used in prints made after paintings, the relationship between portraits and inscriptions, and the use of text as an integral element of a composition. The focus is on unusual and particularly creative examples in the Barber collection. Helen Cobby is Assistant Curator at the Barber Institute. Her role includes caring for the prints and drawings collection, curating and organising Print Bay Displays, and researching and providing access to the collection. 

CHLOE CHURCH: The Representation of Christ’s Divinity in Two Early Modern Italian Printed Images From 12 May, the Barber is displaying Storytelling: A Life of Christ on Paper. This small display showcases a selection of Italian prints and drawings from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries that represent episodes from Christ’s life. Among the works are two prints of the Raising of Lazarus by brothers Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664) and Salvatore Castiglione (1620-1676). Chloe will briefly explore the representation of Christ in these works and the techniques the artists used to centralise Him as the protagonist of the story. Chloe Church is one of the National Gallery Curatorial Trainees currently researching and reinterpreting the pre-1600 Italian paintings at the Barber Institute. Prior to this, she completed her AHRC-funded PhD at the University of Exeter and University of Bristol in 2021, with a thesis title of 'Annunciating the Word in Image: The Visual Exegesis of the Annunciation in Counter-Reformation Italian Altarpieces'. Chloe's research interests lie in the interpretation of the Bible in sixteenth and seventeenth-century paintings and the reception of these artworks. 

KIRSTY CLARKE: A Learning and Engagement Perspective This short talk will explore aspects of the historic printed image through the lens of a practising artist and Barber staff member from the Learning and Engagement team. Kirsty Clarke is Student Engagement Coordinator at the Barber Institute. She programmes creative workshops and events, often with local contemporary artists, to introduce new and existing students to the Barber. Kirsty is also an artist based in Birmingham.