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Description: William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum
~William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum has been a complex undertaking requiring the sustained enthusiasm, expertise, and engagement of many colleagues, friends, and supporters on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade. Although there are inevitably those who cannot be thanked individually, we extend our deepest gratitude to all who have...
PublisherYale Center for British Art
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Acknowledgements
William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum has been a complex undertaking requiring the sustained enthusiasm, expertise, and engagement of many colleagues, friends, and supporters on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade. Although there are inevitably those who cannot be thanked individually, we extend our deepest gratitude to all who have played their part in the production of this challenging project.
Our first debt of gratitude is to the organisations and colleagues who have so generously made their collections available to us for research and, most significantly, as the loans that have made this exhibition possible. First and foremost, Susan Ashworth, Executive Director of Information Services at the University of Glasgow, and her colleagues in Archives and Special Collections, notably the Keeper of the Hunterian Books and Manuscripts, Siobhan Convery, and Julie Gardham, Robert MacLean, Moira Rankin, Louisa Coles, Heidi Ann Offenberg, and Keira McKee, have been unstinting collaborators in their support of a project in which the treasures of William Hunter’s library inevitably play such an important role.
By happy coincidence, as we mark Hunter’s tercentenary, two of our other lenders celebrate important anniversaries in 2018, and their generosity in sharing important works from their collections is doubly generous. In their 250th year, we thank the Royal Academy of Arts, their President, Christopher Le Brun, their Secretary and Chief Executive, Charles Saumarez Smith, and their colleagues Maurice Davies, Annette Wickham, and Helen Valentine. In their 500th year, we also thank the Royal College of Physicians, London, and their President, Dame Jane Dacre, and Curator, Kristin Hussey. At The National Archives, Kew, we thank Jeff James, Chief Executive and Keeper of The National Archives, and his colleagues Emilie Cloos and Kate Narewska. At the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, Stacey Peeples, Curator-Lead Archivist, has been particularly generous with her time and support. At Yale University, we thank the staff at the Medical Historical Library, especially Melissa Grafe, Head, and Susan Wheeler, Curator, for their generous loans to the exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art.
At The Hunterian in Glasgow, we must record our thanks to the former Director, David Gaimster, for his enthusiastic support of this project from the outset. The equally supportive enthusiasm of Steph Scholten, Director of The Hunterian since August 2017, has brought new insights and energies to the realisation of this institutionally demanding exhibition. All of the museum’s curators have made important contributions to the research and selection of objects for this exhibition: Donal Bateson, Peter Black, Neil Clark, Anne Dulau Beveridge, Jesper Ericsson, John Faithfull, Nicky Reeves, Maggie Reilly, Jeanne Robinson—and all are contributors to this publication. A challenging logistical undertaking in many ways, the project has benefited from the unwavering commitment of Malcolm Chapman, Head of Collections Management, who has offered creativity and knowledgeable advice across almost every aspect of the exhibition and publication, ably supported by team members Jayne Stewart, Lizzie O’Neill, Graham Nisbet, Aileen Nisbet, and Robert Armstrong. Ruth Fletcher has made sure that a succession of events, workshops, and activities enjoyed the assistance of a wonderful group of energetic postgraduate students. Monica Callaghan, Susan Ferguson, Harriet Gaston, Lee Scott, Eleanor Capaldi, Yvonne Threwal, Maria Economou, Stephen Perry, Mike Richardson, Andy Jackson, and Chris Maclure have all helped to ensure the successful delivery of this exhibition and publication. Finally, particular thanks must be offered to Sheenagh Young and Susan Boyes for providing unfailing administrative support at every stage.
At the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), we are indebted to numerous friends and colleagues, not least its Director, Amy Meyers, whose leadership, mentorship, and vision—and transformation of the museum into a global research and teaching institution over the past sixteen years—has made such deep-delving, critical exhibitions and publications possible. We would next like to thank Eleanor Hughes, former Associate Director of Exhibitions and Publications at the YCBA, now Deputy Director for Art and Program at the Walters Museum, who initially served as organising curator of the exhibition; Ellie’s enthusiasm and guidance played an invaluable role in setting the wonderful collaboration with The Hunterian on its present path. We sincerely thank the Exhibitions and Publications team at YCBA, including Shaunee Cole, Belene Day, and Christopher Lotis, for their dedicated work on the publication and many aspects of the exhibition. Special thanks are due to Livia Tenzer, our tireless Development Editor, and an honorary member of the YCBA team; Livia has brought deep and penetrating insights to bear in meeting the considerable challenge of editing this text. The rich variety of material in William Hunter’s collection has demanded an equally creative and insightful book design; Miko McGinty and members of her team, especially Rita Jules and Claire Bidwell, have achieved this with admirable skill. The production of this publication has required a significant and complex campaign of new photography. Antonia Reeve, Jon Stokes, Sam Dyer, and India Fullarton from the University of Glasgow Photographic Unit have shown consummate technical and creative skill in making wonderful images of Hunter’s collections. Katie Grant provided considerable support as our manuscripts developed. We fondly thank Sally Salvesen, former Senior Editor at Yale University Press, London, who advised at an earlier stage in the project, and our appreciation goes also to our colleagues at the Press, Heather McCallum, Publisher and Managing Director, and Mark Eastment, Editorial Director (Art and Architecture), for their invaluable partnership.
At the YCBA we also thank our curatorial colleagues for their advice and support, including Martina Droth, Matthew Hargraves, Lars Kokkonen, Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye, Jules Prown, Edward Town, and Scott Wilcox. As Deputy Director of Research, Exhibitions, and Publications, Martina is especially deserving of our thanks for her role as intellectual guide, mentor, and friend. We are extremely grateful to Corey Myers, Chief Registrar; Nancy Macgregor, Associate Registrar; to Richard Johnson, Chief of Installation, and his team; and to Lyn Bell Rose, Head of Design, and Lesley Zurolo in that department. We also thank our exhibition designer, Stephen Saitas, who is a friend and part of the YCBA extended family. Thanks, as always, to Mary Regan-Yttre, picture framer at the YCBA.
At the Center we also are indebted to members of the staff who helped to assemble a rich educational and research programme around the exhibition under the leadership of Martina Droth, including Linda Friedlaender, Jamie Ursic, Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye, and Sarah Kraus. Our colleagues at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, including Mark Hallett, Director of Studies, as well as Sarah Turner and Martin Postle, have also helped in innumerable ways with the intellectual formation of the exhibition and its programme. We are ever grateful to the YCBA’s Communications and Marketing Team, including Beth Miller, April Swieconek, Ronnie Rysz, Shayna Roosevelt, and Amelia Ewan, for their creative promotion of the project, and to Rebecca Sender and John Champlin in the Finance Department.
At Yale University more widely, we thank the curators and librarians at our partner institutions: the Yale University Art Gallery, the Medical Historical Library, and the Peabody Museum of Natural History. We are also grateful to the faculty, staff, and students who contributed to important discussions concerning the display of sensitive materials, including representatives from the Yale School of Medicine and the Medical Humanities & the Arts Council, the Yale School of Nursing and the Yale Nurse-Midwifery Practice, the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, and the Program in the History of Science and Medicine. We are also deeply appreciative of conversations with members of the New Haven community and, in particular, with the representatives of Nasty Women, Connecticut. As always, Yale students have played an instrumental role in the crafting of the project: we warmly thank Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore and Sara Frier, Graduate Student Research Assistants; Anya Powers, Exhibitions and Publications Intern; Dana Klein, Nancy Horton Bartels Summer Intern; and Alex Swanson, Nancy Horton Bartels Academic Year Intern, for their enthusiasm and dedication. Finally, on the American side of the Atlantic, we would like to single out Therese O’Malley, Associate Dean at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., for her insightful contributions.
Many of the objects included in the selection for this exhibition have rarely, if ever, taken centre stage in such a way. Conservation expertise has been engaged to analyse them and to prepare them for exhibition and loan. Notably, Graciela Ainsworth and her remarkable team, together with Will Murray, have worked with colleagues at the University of Glasgow, Mark Richter and Gawain Hammond, to conserve and to transform our understanding of Hunter’s collection of casts related to his investigation of the gravid uterus. This work has been funded by a major grant from Museums Galleries Scotland, and we are profoundly grateful to Gillian Simison for her considered and thoughtful support as this project has developed. Brian McLaughlin and Colleen Davidson have worked to conserve some of Hunter’s pictures and their frames. Christina Young has, with astonishing energy, helped to provide new insights into their making through workshops and treatment undertaken as part of a “Conserving Canvas” grant awarded in 2018 by the Getty Foundation. In Glasgow, Christina has been assisted by Thom Burns, Graduate Student in Technical Art History. Lynsey Nairn, of the Bute Archive at Mount Stuart, and her colleagues, and Sally Cholewa and Lyn Crawford, of the Royal Bank of Scotland Archives in Edinburgh, have been unfailingly helpful. At the YCBA, we are grateful to Mark Aronson, Chief Conservator, and to Jessica David and Soyeon Choi for their advice and support, as well as to Nina Owczarek, for her assessment of the plaster casts at Pennsylvania Hospital, which was facilitated by Stacey Peeples. Special thanks go to Annie Cornwell, Painting Conservation Fellow at the Yale Center for British Art, who investigated paintings by George Stubbs at Yale and Glasgow, and who contributed to this catalogue.
In Glasgow, David Campbell and Aurelia Cloup, of Campbell & Co, brought to bear their unique expertise and experience of working with challenging cultural and medical material to create a ground-breaking exhibition design for The Hunterian. Among colleagues at the University of Glasgow, advice, knowledge, scholarship, and, above all, enthusiasm have been offered by faculty members Mike Barrett, John Bonehill, Alexander Broadie, Kenneth Calman, Geoff Hancock, Alicia Hughes, Lorna Hughes, Craig Lamont, Nigel Leask, Karen Lury, Stuart McDonald, Andy Mills, Malcolm Nicolson, Frances Osis, Nick Pearce, Murray Pittock, Dahlia Porter, Fabio Quondamatteo, Matthew Sangster, Craig Smith, Jeremy Smith, and Ronnie Young. Elizabeth Moignard, Mark O’Neill, and Kate Arnold Foster have been particularly supportive members of The Hunterian’s Strategic Board.
In 2014 two workshops, sponsored by a Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Workshop award, were critical to the initial development of the project. The first of these was held at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, with the enthusiastic support of Mark Hallett, Director of Studies. Both Mark and Martin Postle, Deputy Director for Grants and Publications, have been generous with their time and advice. We are immensely grateful to the many individuals who attended these and other workshops and have given so freely of their knowledge and ideas, including especially Clarissa Campbell Orr, Jeremy Coote, Martina Droth, Martha Fleming, Meredith Gamer, John Goldfinch, Craig Ashley Hanson, Charlie Jarvis, Arthur MacGregor, Helen McCormack, Joanna Marschner, Alice Martin, Nick Savage, Kim Sloan, Michael Snodin, Nick Thomas, Alison Walker, and Scott Wilcox.
At various stages in the process of developing this exhibition and volume, numerous individuals have offered valuable advice and insights, critically helpful comments, and important correctives and perspectives. Among these friends and colleagues are Silke Ackermann, Sam Alberti, Marie-Luisa Allemeyer, Alexi Baker, Nadim Bawalsa, Paola Bertucci, Tim Boon, Simon Chaplin, Edward Cooke, Thomas Duffy, Ivan Gaskell, Michael Hall, Marieke Hendriksen, Ludmilla Jordanova, Ethan Lasser, George Loudon, Duncan Macmillan, Robert Peck, Emma Shepley, Richard Sher, Bill Sherman, and Steve Turner. Nicholas Phillipson, who died during the final stages of the production of this publication, had been particularly helpful as the ideas at the heart of this exhibition were developed.
Both The Hunterian and the YCBA owe deepest thanks and most profound admiration to our colleague María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui, the William Hunter Tercentenary Curator at The Hunterian. Lola’s intellect, curatorial understanding, and insights, as well as her knowledge, her efficiency, her diplomacy, and her warmth and energy, are reflected at almost every turn in this project. William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum simply would not have happened without her.
Last but certainly not least, we would like to send a heartfelt thank-you to our families—Tess, Archie, and Constance Campbell; and Ana, Jonah, and Isabel Flis— for their patience, understanding, and steadfast support.
Mungo Campbell
Nathan Flis
Acknowledgements
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