Celebrating 50 Years of Bringing Children and Books Together

The Federation of Children’s Book Groups is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Founded in 1968 by parent, teacher and television producer Anne Wood CBE, the organisation is passionate about bringing children and books together, working at both national and local levels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This exhibition traces the history of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups including the Children’s Book Award, which is the only national book award voted for entirely by children. It has been co-curated by the University of Reading Special Collections and Getting Reading Reading, which is one of the Federation’s local children’s book groups. They are one of the twelve Testing Groups for the award.

The exhibition features some of the past winners of the award displayed alongside books and objects from The Museum of English Rural Life and the University of Reading’s Special Collections. There is a particular focus on the theme of animals in children’s literature. The associated trail will lead you around the exhibition and beyond into The MERL, where you will also find the Ladybird Gallery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can find out more about the work of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups by clicking here. The FCBG have also posted a blog about the exhibition on their own website.

The exhibition will be on display at the Special Collections Service until Tuesday 31 July 2018.

New exhibition: From Italy to Britain: Winckelmann and the spread of neoclassical taste

Illustration of a Herculanean dancer. From: Ottavio Baiardi. The antiquities of Herculaneum. London: S. Leacroft, 1773.

Although Johann Joachim Winckelmann may not be a household name today, his influence on British art, design, and architecture was profound. Our new exhibition, ‘From Italy to Britain: Winckelmann and the spread of neoclassical taste’, tells the story of his contribution to the revival of classical arts and culture in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this post, Professor Amy Smith, one of the exhibition curators, explains how Winckelmann’s discoveries in Italy influenced and inspired generations of British artists, craftsmen and architects.

Like many antiquarians of his day, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) first learned about the Classics through immersion in literature. As a teacher then librarian in his native Germany, Winckelmann encountered the ancient world primarily through literary texts, as well as the souvenirs—coins, gems and figurines—Grand Tourists and other travellers had brought north from their visits to Italy. Once he arrived in Rome, where he rose to prominence at Prefect of Antiquities in the Vatican, Winckelmann studied the remains of Greek, Graeco-Roman and Roman art on a larger scale. Through personal contacts, letters and other writings, Winckelmann influenced his and subsequent generations of scholars, aesthetes, collectors, craftsmen and artists both within and beyond Italy.

The judgment of Paris. From: John Flaxman. The Iliad of Homer. London: Longman, 1805.

Winckelmann’s influence came to Britain through decorative designs in country houses that copied the style of wall paintings found in the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, on which he had reported. His influence is also visible in John Flaxman’s adaptations of classical and neoclassical images in drawings that illustrated the works of Homer and reliefs that decorate Josiah Wedgwood’s jasperware.

Winckelmann’s writings also encouraged an interest in Greek architecture and architectural sculpture, which was copied and adapted, for example, in Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory. The upper story of this remarkable building, designed by Henry Keene in 1772 and completed by James Wyatt in 1794, copies Athens’ octagonal Tower of the Winds, with reliefs that emulate Wedgwood’s jasperware friezes.

The Tower of the Winds. From: James Stuart and Nicholas Revett. The antiquities of Athens. London: Haberkorn, 1762-94.

In the next generation architects continued to incorporate Hellenising elements into monuments such as Reading’s Simeon Monument (designed by Sir John Soane in 1804) and Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum (designed by Charles Robert Cockerell in 1845). The latter incorporates casts of the original friezes for the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae, the originals of which were found by Cockerell and acquired by the British Museum. Knowledge of Greek architectural reliefs in the British Museum was disseminated on a smaller scale through engravings and miniature casts designed, manufactured and sold by John Henning (1771–1851).

The exhibition at Special Collections, From Italy to Britain: Winckelmann and the spread of neoclassical taste, displays some of Winckelmann’s letters, 18th–19th century printed volumes and drawings and relevant artefacts, ancient and modern, that illustrate Winckelmann’s broad influence. The exhibition, a collaboration of University of Reading’s Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology (www.reading.ac.uk/ure) with Special Collections, runs from 15 September through 15 December 2017.

For information on opening hours and how to find us, please see our website.

All images © University of Reading Special Collections

An A to Z exhibition: Agriculture to Zoology and beyond

bloch toad fish

The ever-beautiful toad fish, from the 1796 Ichthyologie, ou, Histoire naturelle des poissons (COLE—X394)

Our library and archives hold a wide range of collections that touch on many of the areas studies here at the University and beyond. From law material to zoology, agriculture to English and education to typography, we have something for everyone! To showcase the breadth, we have a new exhibition here at Special Collections that includes items selected from across our collections.

Henry II charter1

A 12th-century charter of Henry II to the Abbey of St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte (MS 1488)

One case is dedicated to the story of the University itself, showcasing Reading’s tradition of academic excellence back to the late 19th century, when the Schools of Art and Science was established in Reading. These became part of an extension college opened in 1892 by Christ Church, Oxford. Three years later the local Palmer family, of the famous biscuit manufacturer Huntley & Palmers, donated the London Road site – and later this building in which MERL and Special Collections are now housed (originally Alfred Palmer’s house), which became the first Hall of Residence for women. We received a Royal Charter in 1926, the only university to do so between the two world wars, and in 1947 we purchased our main Whiteknights campus, the former country estate of the Marquis of Blandford.

Other cases explore the sciences, social sciences and humanities. An 18th-century text on the history of fish sits beside a 12th-century charter of Henry II to the Abbey of St Sauveur-le-Vicomte; a 1950s guide to sign lettering for the Festival of Britain complements the 19th-century Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones; and a theatre programme for a Japanese production of Waiting for Godot in 1994 is matched by a signed letter from WB Yeats.

Owen Jones

The grammar of ornament, by Owen Jones (PRINTING COLLECTION FOLIO–745-JON)

The exhibition will be on display at the Special Collections Service from until 30 September 2013.