Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Some light tanning due to age. Plates bright and vivid. Year 1952. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> In December 1932 Dame Martha Constance Hattie Barber founded in memory of her late husband Sir William Henry Barber Bart. a life Governor of the University of Birmingham a trust to provide endowments for certain Professorships (including in particular a Professorship of Fine Arts) Scholarships and Prizes in the University and for the erection and equipment upon land to be provided by the University of a building to be called ‘the Institute of Fine Arts’ containing an Art Gallery or Museum and a Music Room to belong to and to be used in perpetuity by the University for the study and encouragement of art and music. Lady Barber directed that the income of the Trust Fund should be applied subject to the payment of the professorial endowments in the purchase of ‘works of art or beauty of exceptional and outstanding merit comprising pictures painted not later than the end of the nineteenth century furniture tapestries needlework lace medieval manuscripts finely printed books and other works of art of such merit as aforesaid but not pottery or china’ to be preserved and exhibited in the Art Gallery. The Trustees are expressly forbidden to accept gifts of any articles for exhibition in the Gallery. The general care and direction of the Institute rests with the Barber Professor of Fine Arts a post to which Professor Thomas Bodkin D.Litt. was appointed by the University. Lady Barber by her Will bequeathed the residue of her estate to augment the trust she had previously created. After her death the Trustees having appointed Mr Robert Atkinson F.R.L.B.A. their Architect proceeded with the erection and equipment of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts which was opened by Her Majesty Queen Mary on 26 July 1939. At that date the Trustees with the invaluable help and advice of Professor Bodkin as Director of the Institute. (MP)