Teaching Collections and Fine Art Pedagogy

I will be undertaking my research in the context of a collaborative project which is examining art education and the culture of the North East between the 1930s and 1970s.
My research will consider the role, rationale, and influence of teaching collections within Fine Art Departments in the 20th century. I will focus on the Hatton Gallery Collection at Newcastle University as a case study, particularly concentrating on the teaching collection formed in the 1940's to 1960's under the guidance of professor Lawrence Gowing and art historian Ralph Holland.

I will examine the pedagogical significance of the teaching collection and the evidence for its influence on specific examples of artistic production and consider the notion that a collection of objects in the North East of England may have influenced the story of art in the 20th and into the 21st century.

Proposed research process:
I will take the approach of working through from an overview of teaching collections in general, to concentrating on the specifics of the role and significance of the Gowing and Holland collection and then focus on the impact of individual objects within the collection.

Step 1 - To understand the Hatton Teaching collection in the context of the history of fine art teaching collections per se, through a literature review of the existing research.

Step 2 - To establish a time line for the evidence of the use of teaching collections, eg from the influence of collections of classical art and antiquities on the development of Renaissance ideas, onwards to the origins of the Hatton collection and through to the Gowing and Holland acquisitions.

Step 3 - To focus on the content of the Hatton Collection by gaining an understanding of its content through review of the current catalogue and studying the archives.

Step 4 - to gather information and gain an insight into how the Hatton Teaching collection is currently being used.

Step 5 - To identify, from my personal experience of Step 3 as a user of the catalogue and from possible research undertaken with existing students, how the information in the catalogue may need improving in its role as a resource for understanding and accessing the collection.

Step 6 - To research what evidence exists that can identify specific reasons for the inclusion of each object in the teaching collection and thereby gain a better understanding of the role of each object within the collection and its pedagogical purpose.

Step 7 - to undertake (or collate information gained through steps 1 - 5) a literature review of the Gowing and Holland collection and its role in the studio and art history teaching of the Fine Art Department.

Step 8 - to gather further evidence of the role and influence of the teaching collections from accounts gathered through interviews and surveys on artists and art historians who have worked in the Fine Art department.

Step 9 - to consider how we may involve the wider North East community in contributing their views on what they know about the Hatton teaching collections.

Step 10 - to consider how the role of the Hatton teaching collection can be preserved as an integral part of art education with the Fine Art department but also maintained and promoted as a resource across the North East community.
(A possible collaboration with Tyneside Cinema, University of the Third Age? Collaboration with Equal Arts and other organisations to involve hard to reach communities, eg people living with dementia).

Step 11 onwards - to work with the fellow studentships to promote the research undertaken, through seminars, film, conferences and exhibitions.