Description
Online Event
Friday 12th April, 12pm
FREE TO FRIENDS OF THE DE MORGAN FOUNDATION.
Join for £30 per year to access all of our lectures and receive the exclusive Friends’ Journal.
Ferens’ Foundations: Philanthropy, suffrage and contradictions
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, was founded in 1927 by Thomas Ferens, a local business man, philanthropist and politician. Today Hull is steeped in Ferens’ legacy, from road names to the University of Hull, he continues to be a familiar name and the endowments he provided the city with still provide access to world class art.
However, the works that form Ferens Art Gallery’s early collection reveal much about Thomas Ferens’ taste, and also offer an intriguing parallel with his political career, including his campaigns for suffrage and to end enslavement of women and girls in the British Empire.
This talk will articulate a new approach to thinking about the formation of the Ferens’ collection, while highlighting key works by James Herbert Draper, Rosa Bonheur, Lady Elizabeth Butler and Edward Atkinson Hornel.
Kerri Offord
Kerri is a museum professional who has specialisms within the Arts & Crafts Movement and has a particular interest in the work of women artists and those that challenge the traditional gender construct. She is currently Curator at the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums, and was previously Head of Curatorial at Lakeland Arts, overseeing the collection and programme at Abbot Hall Art Gallery and Blackwell, the Arts & Crafts House. Previously, Kerri worked at Watts Gallery where she created a gallery dedicated to the work of Mary Watts and reinstated the studio of G F Watts as part of a National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project. During this time Kerri also worked with the De Morgan Foundation when the collection first went on display at Watts Gallery.
