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Museums of Cambridge

January 2022 - May 2024
Visits to the museums of the University of Cambridge, as well as others in the city, to see the main displays of note and attend important exhibitions. Read more
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  • TravelerMuseums of Cambridge
    Day 1

    Introduction to the Museums of Cambridge

    January 24, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 2 °C

    Together, the eight University of Cambridge Museums and Cambridge University Botanic Garden represent the UK’s highest concentration of internationally important collections outside London: 

    - The Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street; art and antiquities
    - University Museum Of Zoology, Downing Street; scientifically important zoological material
    - Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Downing Street; archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world
    - Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Free School Lane; materials related to the history of science
    - Museum of Cambridge, Castle Street; Cambridge & County Folk Museum
    - Scott Polar Research Institute (Polar Museum), Lensfield Road: centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide
    - Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Downing Street; geology museum
    - Museum of Classical Archaeology, Sidgwick Avenue; one of the few surviving collections of plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture in the world
    - Kettle's Yard, Castle Street; a house full of 20th century art alongside a contemporary art gallery
    - Botanic Garden; a plant collection of over 8,000 plant species from all over the world to facilitate teaching and research

    There are also other museums in Cambridge:

    - David Parr House, Gwydir Street; a preserved terraced house in Cambridge, with interior decoration in the Arts and Crafts style
    - The Centre for Computing History, Rene Court; a permanent public exhibition telling the story of the Information Age
    - Cambridge Museum of Technology, Cheddar Street; an industrial heritage museum
    - Cambridge Science Centre, Clifton Road; an interactive science museum    Read more

  • TravelerMuseums of Cambridge
    Day 2

    Fitzwilliam; Gold of the Great Steppe

    January 25, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    Treasures uncovered at Saka burial complexes, comprising of mounds (kurgan), in East Kazakhstan have been on display in Cambridge at the Fitzwilliam Museum; the Saka were a prehistoric nomadic warrior horse people who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin and dominated this region, from the Black Sea to Siberia, from about 900BC to 200BC. This part of the world is of interest to me due to its proximity to the Silk Road (see atdtravel.wordpress.com for my blog describing this overland travel adventure).

    The highlights of the "Gold of the Great Steppe" exhibition are gold artefacts found with a high-rank teenage archer discovered in 2018 at the Eleke Sazy kurgans and include status symbols such as a gold neck torc and thousands of gold shoe beads; other items found with the teenage archer included a short composite bow designed to be fired from horseback and a bronze dagger with gold sheath.  

    There are stylised animal artefacts on display (including a stag plaque with twisted legs, griffins and argali on cloud stands) which point to the mythological view of the world that the Saka had.  The exhibition also draws attention to the importance of horses to the Saka in Steppe society, to their metal working skills in general, as well as their ability to work with natural resources, including plants and herbs.

    All in all, a very pleasant morning's diversion and a reminder of an interesting part of the world    Read more

  • TravelerMuseums of Cambridge
    Day 142

    Fitzwilliam; Hockney's Eye

    June 14, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    David Hockney (b.1937, Bradford) is one of the most influential artists of our time; the exhibition "Hockney's Eye: The Art and Technology of Depiction" is in both The Fitzwilliam Museum, where his art is integrated across several picture galleries against the background of his dialogue with the "Old Masters", and The Heong Gallery (part of Downing College). Hockney’s Eye explores the artist’s pioneering modern experiments in bringing hand, eye and optical instruments together inventively. 

    In his use of cameras, digital drawing, the iPad and digital film, Hockney is following a tradition of creative experiments with optical devices that goes back from Ingres’ camera lucida to Canaletto’s camera obscura and right back to the birth of Renaissance naturalism in the fifteenth century. 

     Fitzwilliam

    Our walk through the museum overs many aspects of his work via separate sections in several of the galleries:

    Gallery 3 (British Art, 16-18th century); "Doing portraits" - his self-portrait, those of others and ipad self-portraits;  pictures are visibly related to work of predecessors such as Hogarth

    Gallery 6 (Italian Art, 14-16th century); "Perspectives on perspective" - includes a very interesting video on the optical rules of linear perspective

    Gallery 7 (Italian Art, 18th century); "A lens on the Grand Canal"

    Gallery 8 (Spanish and Flemish Art); "Hockney and Brueghel"

    Gallery 10 (Octoganal exhibition space); "Seeing them watching us" - front of house staff at the National Gallery, London

    Gallery 17 (Flower Paintings, Inlaid Furniture and Clocks); "What a shadow shows us" and "How to make flowers last"

    Gallery 15 (Dutch Art, 17-18th century); "Perspective; orthodox and reverse" - how can a picture convey what we actually see?

    Gallery 14 (Exhibition space); "Artists and optical aids" - use of optical tools such as camera lucida, camera obscura, concave mirrors

    Gallery 12 (Exhibition space); "Time Travel" - digital videos synchronised and presented on nine monitors; also ipad pictures

     Heong Gallery

    This charts Hockney’s pioneering modern experiments from the 1960s to the present day in bringing hand, eye, and optical instruments together; this includes photo collages and pictures derived from the use of mirrors.

    All in all, a great morning out seeing some good art and having an interesting experience.    Read more

  • TravelerMuseums of Cambridge
    Day 142

    Kettle's Yard; The House

    June 14, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Kettle's Yard is part of the University of Cambridge Museums consortium and was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen;  they moved to Cambridge in 1956 and converted four small cottages into one house as a place to display Ede's collection of early 20th-century art.  Ede was a curator at the Tate Gallery in London, and as such it is biased towards works from the British avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century.  In 1966, Ede gave the house and collection to the University of Cambridge, but continued living there before he and his wife moved to Edinburgh in 1973; the house is preserved as the Ede’s left it, making a very informal space to enjoy the permanent collection, and in 1970, the house was extended.

    Kettle's Yard is located in a quiet corner of Cambridge, overlooking St Peter’s Church, and is a beautiful house filled with beautiful objects placed to create a harmonic whole; a visit to the house has to be booked in advance.  Our small group starts by ringing the bell, as visitors had to do when Ede maintained an 'open house' each afternoon, giving any visitors, particularly students, a personal tour of his collection. Our guide shows us the downstairs area and explains how everything - including arrangements of pebbles, sculptures and paintings - has been left in its exact place. On the next floor we see a lounge area and internal balcony which leads to the gallery extension downstairs (there is a bedroom area up another flight of stairs) - this gallery, also used for small live musical performances, is delightful.  It was amazing to see how the four cottages had been joined together and the way it had all been laid out with great care and attention to detail.

    There is also an exhibition gallery on two levels next to the house, which has been built in a contrasting modernist style (see next post).    Read more

  • TravelerMuseums of Cambridge
    Day 142

    Kettle's Yard; The Liberty of Doubt

    June 14, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    This was our first visit to the contemporary art gallery next to Kettle's Yard house and we attended a new exhibition by Ai Weiwei (born 1957, Beijing, China), one of the world’s most renowned and significant artists; he was joint architect of the Bird's Nest stadium built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. From 2009, however, he has been a Chinese Exile due to his activism; he spent some of this time living in Cambridge, but moved in 2020 to live in Portugal.

    His Liberty of Doubt exhibition sets out to explore both the freedom of the West has in contrast to China and other authoritative regimes, and the differing traditions in the art of the East and West (ie ancient and modern) in relation to authenticity. He has mixed his own artworks with historic Chinese objects; the antiquities on display were acquired by Ai Weiwei at an auction in Cambridge in 2020, and some have been identified some as original and others as counterfeit. 

    Highlights that we saw included the following:

    Chinese lacquered Greystone fragmentary hand, clutching a bottle; probably the hand of a Bodhisattva.

    Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn; in 1995, Ai Weiwei intentionally dropped a Han Dynasty urn while being photographed – simultaneously destroying and making - and drew attention to the Chinese government’s widespread destruction of the country’s heritage.  This exhibit was actually made from Lego bricks (in 2015).

    Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 2014; one of a series in which Ai has painted the Coca-Cola logo onto an ancient vessel - burnishing an historical Chinese artefact with a globally recognisable brand, he considers the place of China within contemporary consumer culture.

    Blue and White Porcelain Plates, 2017; Inspired by the ancient Greek story of The Odyssey, Ai reflects on the cyclical nature of history in the imagery of these plates, drawing a correlation between the journey undertaken by Odysseus and the ongoing global refugee crisis. The plates show six themes: War, Ruins, the Journey, Crossing the Sea, Refugee Camps, Demonstrations.

    Marble Surveillance Camera with Plinth, 2014; since 2008, Ai’s studio compound in Beijing has been surrounded by over two dozen surveillance cameras put in place by the authorities - following this intrusive act, Ai has frequently investigated the theme of surveillance in his work.

    The Chair for Non-attendance, 2013; originally made to commemorate a friend who was detained by the Chinese state, it was presented in 2013 at the Stockholm Film Festival, where Ai had been invited to be a juror, but was prevented from attending due to being barred from leaving China by state officials.

    Marble Takeout Box, 2015; the locally produced Styrofoam takeout box is the most ubiquitous takeaway container in China, yet the country is the nation that has produced the highest quality porcelain in the past.

    Marble Toilet Paper, 2020; the whole world was in a panic in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and unnoticed and everyday objects suddenly became scarce in all the supermarkets and this work lays bare how fragile civilized progress actually is.

    Three of his documentary films were also featured; Coronation (2020) about the pandemic in Wuhan, Cockroach (2020) about the student protests in Hong Kong and and Human Flow (2017) about the global migration crisis - we did not see these.

    An interesting afternoon    Read more

  • TravelerMuseums of Cambridge
    Day 341

    Fitzwilliam; Defaced!

    December 30, 2022 in England ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    Defaced! Money, Conflict, Protest is a major exhibition to explore a 250-year history of protest, using currency and canvas as vehicles for rebellion. Since it is passed through many hands, cash - both notes and coins - is the ideal way to circulate a message while having a go or poking fun at those in power. "If you're fed up and throwing rocks isn't your thing, take it out on the money."

    On disply are objects of rebellion made by radicals of the nineteenth and early twentieth century shown alongside works by contemporary artists and activists, including Banksy.  The objects include a Boer War cannon and the loan of the fragments of an exploded Transit van detonated by The Hoe Street Central Bank as part of the Big Bang 2 project, which bought up £1.2million of payday loan debt.

    It was an extremely interesting visit; see captions with the pictures for descriptions of some of the things we saw (no images of coins though as they were too difficult to photograph in the low light conditions).    Read more

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