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New partnership with National Gallery

Posted on 20 October 2010

York signs research partnership with the National Gallery.

The research collaboration between the Gallery and the University’s Department of History of Art will last initially for four years. It will result in a range of initiatives from joint research projects to giving York students the opportunity to go behind the scenes at the National Gallery. It will focus on the Gallery’s main research strands and its exhibitions, as well as research topics of mutual interest initiated by the Department.

The relationship will strengthen our own curatorial expertise as well as our aspiration to put the National Gallery collection at the heart of university teaching and research

Nicholas Penny
Director, National Gallery

The partnership will also see the establishment of an annual National Gallery/York lecture, which will involve a scholar from one institution giving a public lecture in the other, with the venue alternating from year to year.

There will also be an annual National Gallery/York symposium or open forum discussion – organised jointly by a representative of each institution - on topics to be mutually agreed, again taking place in each venue in alternate years.

Art historians from York will also help to develop National Gallery exhibitions and carry out joint work on the Gallery’s exhibitions and research programme. The agreement will also allow for History of Art students at York to go behind the scenes at the National Gallery with Curators to give them a more intimate knowledge of the collections.

The Head of History of Art at York, Professor Mark Hallett, said: “This partnership with the National Gallery will see staff from both institutions working together in a wide variety of exciting ways to their mutual benefit. It will also give our students a rare glimpse into the workings of one of the world’s great collections.”

“The National Gallery is delighted to collaborate with the University of York’s History of Art Department”, said the Director of the National Gallery, Nicholas Penny. “The relationship will strengthen our own curatorial expertise as well as our aspiration to put the National Gallery collection at the heart of university teaching and research.”   

The collaboration with the National Gallery follows major agreements with Tate Britain and the V&A that the Department of History of Art has signed over the last two years.

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