The shared language, attitudes, practices and patterns of those who participate in “collecting" in the lower mainland area of British Columbia are described. Recurring themes and patterns emerge in the analysis of data obtained through interviews with thirty collector-informants. The generalizability of collecting as a phenomenon which exists outside of what is being collected is established. Collectors' roles as curators and the serious and consuming aspects of collecting, including the cycles of collecting, affection and sentiment held toward collected objects, and the strategies and approaches to the process of collecting are discussed. Propositions set out by previous researchers Belk, Danet and Katriel are examined in light of the data. Implications for museum studies and museum education specifically, are considered.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 33-34).

For many, a museum visit may consist of gazing at objects locked away in glass a cabinet accompanied by signs forbidding touch, and complex and often confusing text panels. But what message does this present to the visiting public? How can the public connect with museums and their collections if objects are beyond their reach? Why is handling reserved for the museum elite and not the general public? The value of touch and object handling in museums is a growing area of research, but also one that is not yet fully understood. Despite our range of senses with which we experience the world around us, museums traditionally rely on the visual as the principle means of communicating information about the past. However museums are increasingly required to prove their worth and value in society by becoming more accessible, not just in terms of audience but by opening up their stored collections, and government agenda is pushing for culture to feature in the everyday lives of the public. This research pulls apart the hierarchical nature of touch in the museum, demonstrating the benefits of a “hands-on” approach to engaging with the past, investigating the problems and limitations associated with tactile experiences, and puts forward a toolkit for tactile access to collections. It suggests that handling museum collections, not only enhances our understanding of the past, but provides memorable and valuable experiences that will remain with an individual for life.

This inter-disciplinary examination assesses the European ceramics in the collections of the Dukes of Hamilton over a number of generations. The study is based principally on the evidence found in the Hamilton and other archives, comprising both textual and visual sources. The second element that forms the foundation for the research is the connoisseurship of ceramics, both extant and those known only through documents. Evidence has revealed that the Duchesses of Hamilton play a major role in this work. A significant number of Hamilton ceramics have been newly identified and located, while their attribution, acquisition and history within the collections have been assessed and clarified.

In the twentieth century, collecting became a core activity of local authority art galleries and museums in Britain. A key feature of these art collections was the representation of Twentieth Century British Art. The aim of this study is to examine, for the first time, this development as abroad cultural phenomenon, through the distinctive roles played by central government-funded, and independent national and provincial art collection schemes. The central government-funded art collection schemes are the V. & A Purchase Grant Fund, War Artists' Advisory Committee and the National Heritage Memorial Fund; and the national loan and exhibition schemes offered by the Tate Gallery and the Arts Council. Independent schemes are more numerous and varied. These were administered by the National Art Collections Fund (now the Art Fund), Contemporary Art Society, Scottish Modem Arts Association, Contemporary Art Society for Wales, Henry Moore Foundation and Gulbenkian Foundation. In addition, there were the independent national loan and exhibition schemes offered by the Museums Association, Peter Stuyvesant Foundation and Alistair McAlpine and provincial schemes based in Manchester (Charles Rutherston Loan Scheme), Cardiff (National Museum of Wales Loan Scheme), Liverpool ('John Moores' competition-exhibitions) and Bradford ('International Print Biennale' competition-exhibitions). Given the geographical coverage, historical scope and focus of this study, a substantial body of published and unpublished literature was consulted. The wide-range of sources examined included institutional histories, biographies and studies of Twentieth-Century British Art; permanent collection and exhibition catalogues; newspaper, journal and magazine articles, curatorial records and correspondence; institutional records and correspondence; archival material and reports; and . correspondence and interviews. This entailed the discovery of much new material and the collation of substantial random data held by the Contemporary Art Society and the Gulbenkian Foundation This research seeks to show that local authority collecting of Twentieth-Century British Art was part of a nation-wide cultural pattern determined by certain ideas, theories and policies. Within this context, Section 1 identifies and discusses the nature and purpose of public art galleries, muscums and their art collections from 1845-1945. This momentous period in the museum movement in Britain, it is argued, sustained and generated ideas, theories and policies which encompassed national institutional hierarchies and their models of collecting, high art aesthetic standards and scholarship linked connoisseurship; the organic structure of museums; and multifaceted education. It concludes that during this formative period, an enduring cultural framework was established, from which emerged key collecting impetuses which are art history, patronage and heritage. Sections 2 and 3 examine the roles played by central government-funded and independent schemes, as a response to these issues, which also engendered and reinforced the collecting of specific types of Twentieth Century British Art. Section'4 surveys the local authority collections, which participated in the schemes, and concludes that 1957-79 was a crucial period in post-war collecting, which was both facilitated by the emergence of a considerable and dynamic network of commercial art galleries, and enhanced by national and provincial measures to decentralize the arts. A principal conclusion is that the future of modem (twentieth-century) and contemporary (twenty-first- century) British art collecting, by local authority art galleries and museums, lies in its perception as part of a collective cultural enterprise, in which the intervention of collection schemes will, as in the past, play a fundamental role. Finally, there is also a strong argument for provincial institutions to feed into a national debate as to what is selected to represent both modem and contemporary British art practice in public collections in general.

The shared language, attitudes, practices and patterns of those who participate in “collecting" in the lower mainland area of British Columbia are described. Recurring themes and patterns emerge in the analysis of data obtained through interviews with thirty collector-informants. The generalizability of collecting as a phenomenon which exists outside of what is being collected is established. Collectors' roles as curators and the serious and consuming aspects of collecting, including the cycles of collecting, affection and sentiment held toward collected objects, and the strategies and approaches to the process of collecting are discussed. Propositions set out by previous researchers Belk, Danet and Katriel are examined in light of the data. Implications for museum studies and museum education specifically, are considered. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Fine Arts / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This research aims to evaluate the construction of Turkey and the “Oriental other” in Colonial Britain at the turn of the 20th century through a post-colonial theoretical perspective presented through the analysis of various data regarding the 'Aegean & Hittite Collections' gallery at the Public Museum Liverpool (now World Museum) from 1931 till the Blitz of June 1941. The sources include undocumented archives such as field notes, postcards and correspondence and what remains of the 'Garstang Hittite Collection' held at National Museums Liverpool (NML). A full investigation into how the collection was put together through curatorial and archaeological methods, what it consisted of, why these specific objects were chosen and what value were attributed by the collector and curators of the time along with gallery pals and visitors’’ guide book will allow for valid reconstruction and re-interpretation of the “Aegean & Hittite Gallery”. Furthermore I shall also explore the value of displaying a substantial collection of Hittite casts at a time when such objects were tools for Classical and Neo-Classical artistic education, understood by contemporary British society to be the pinnacle of artistic achievement. This Neo-Hittite imagery had no artistic value attributed to it and was displayed in a context of educational value for the lower social classes who could not perceive the ‘high’ arts involved in Classical Greek culture that had been adopted by aristocratic Britain as the paradigm for its own colonial identity; popularly reinforced nationally through various media, including exhibitions such as this, and also internationally through neo-Classical architectural design e.g. The Liverpool Acropolis. My thesis also relates the above premises with the life and work of Prof. John Garstang, his role within the Institute of Archaeology in Liverpool, his contribution to the “Aegean & Hittite Collections' gallery, his role as archaeological agent for private collectors, his work ethics and methodologies and his later role as establisher of British archaeological institutes in Jerusalem, Amman and Ankara. Academic reception of Hittite archaeology in Britain and the newly-formed nation-state of Turkey following the abolition of Ottoman rule in 1923 will also be considered especially regarding Garstang’s standing as a British archaeologist contributing to the Kemâlist Turkish capital city of Ankara in 1947. This research will place the Hittite Gallery’s contents and displays within their archaeological, cultural and intellectual contexts but also aims to explore the political use of contemporaneous Hittite archaeological negotiation both in Britain and Turkey at such a tumultuous time bound together through the work of Prof. John Garstang.

Management of cultural heritage depends on ethical decisions. These ethical decisions will bestow the heritage with a value and will protect it by establishing legal frameworks. However, sometimes, these legal frameworks can have the opposite effect and damage the heritage if they are not continuously revised and updated according to the new ethical challenges of the development in the field of cultural heritage. Although underwater cultural heritage has a legislative element that protects it from the relatively minor threat of treasure hunters, it pays little attention to ethical concerns that expose the heritage to more serious menaces. This study proposes (contrary to the traditional view of land heritage management as an example to underwater heritage management) a new vision where underwater cultural heritage challenges principles that in land heritage management have been taken for granted: valuation, use, management and preservation. The work presents four case studies as models both for illustrating the key ethical issues and for offering solutions: the violin of the Titanic, ancient lead for particle physics experiments, watery graves and the effects of climate change on underwater cultural heritage. Finally this work explores themes of value, ethics and the process in which a common object becomes heritage.

Conservators treat and repair a huge array of damaged and degrading materials on a regular basis. As such, there are many techniques and protocols in place to deal with these problems successfully, be that via preventative or interventive methods. However, there is need for new and innovative techniques that offer long term stabilisation to materials and objects that are prevalent within museum collections. As an alternative to some of these conservation techniques, hydration with supercritical carbon dioxide was investigated here. Both modern and historic, hardwood and softwood samples were successfully hydrated using this technique. The addition of a co-solvent (methanol) to the supercritical fluid solvent stream was used as a method to increase the solubility of water in carbon dioxide, and therefore improve levels of hydration. To evaluate the extent of any damage being caused during the supercritical fluid treatment, microstructural and macrostructural analytical techniques were carried out. The supercritical hydration technique allowed historic wood to be hydrated and stabilised. Strength properties were seen to be maintained or improved after the supercritical treatment, providing conservators with a viable method of hydration. A feasibility study looking at the cleaning and characterisation of historic leather samples was investigated using spectroscopic methods. The sensitivity of Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform spectroscopy on historic leather was explored. Additionally, changes in elemental composition on the surface of the leather were monitored using Scanning Electron Microscopy Energy Dispersive spectroscopy. Cleaning historic leather via a supercritical carbon dioxide solvent stream showed the greatest potential for future work. However, the characterisation of unattributed historic leather is a vast and complex task that would require the expertise of a leather conservator, if the investigation were to be continued.