News
Wednesday, 02 February 2011
After giving his collection to Oxford, what did General Pitt-Rivers do next? He started again…
This ʻsecondʼ collection is now the focus of research at the Pitt Rivers Museum and has inspired artist Sue Johnson to create paintings in which she explores the nature of objects and imagines their secret lives. Four paintings entitled The Curious Nature of Objects will be on display until 2 May 2011.
In this new work, Johnson blurs the boundaries between the natural and cultural worlds. At first glance, her watercolours appear to be authentic natural history illustrations documenting newly discovered plants and animals. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that each vision depicts a hybrid organism with origins in the world of objects made by human hands in diverse cultures. To create her works, Johnson has been researching the catalogue held at Cambridge University Library of the more than 20,000 objects in General Pitt-Riversʼs ʻsecondʼ collection.
The Research Project
The project ʻRethinking Pitt-Rivers: Analysing the Activities of a Nineteenth-Century Collectorʼ (funded by a grant from The Leverhulme Trust, 2009–2012), of which Johnson is an associate researcher, will provide a comprehensive account of the collecting activities of General Pitt-Rivers, including both his ʻfirstʼ collection (held here at the Pitt Rivers Museum) and his ʻsecondʼ collection, which is now scattered around the world in public and private collections.
About the Artist
Sue Johnson has worked collaboratively with museums and rare book libraries for many years, creating exhibitions based on works from collections in the USA. Johnson is currently living and working in Oxford, where she is a Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Oxford. She is also Professor of Art in the Department of Art & Art History at St. Maryʼs College of
Maryland.
For more information, please visit the Pitt Rivers Museum website.
