V&A Network
V&A Network
Take a look at what goes on behind-the-scenes in the world’s greatest museum of art and design. From bestselling exhibitions to hidden gems in the collections, learn about our latest projects, ideas and discoveries.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - 11:19
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By Nicholas Smith, Archivist.Last September Dr Earle Havens from Johns Hopkins University approached me about the V&A Archive hosting a group of eight undergraduate students as part of their Museums and Society Programme visit to London. The V&A Archive is visited regularly by individual researchers from overseas, who study our unique and irreplaceable documents for a range of academic...
Sunday, March 10, 2013 - 08:00
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Stick brown canes in clods of earth lined up in buckets take refuge in my hall, the ground outside still frozen and closed for business.I dug them up before Christmas. Hurriedly, passionately, with vigour and intent, quite desperate and determined to retain a small fraction of the raspberry tradition of No.28, my childhood family home in Derbyshire. It would soon be gone from us; it felt...
Saturday, March 9, 2013 - 12:27
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By Paula Nuttall, Director of Late Medieval to Early Renaissance Year Course. In contrast to last week’s pathos-laden image of the Virgin with the Dead Christ, this Virgin and Child by the German sculptor Veit Stoss is notable for its joyous mood, a reminder of the emotional range encompassed by figurative art in this period. It is small – some 20 cm high – and exquisitely...
Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 17:25
Guest post by Erika Lederman:ISABEL A. COWPER – First Female Official Photographer of the First Museum Photographic Service?With March being International Women’s Month, and Friday, 8 March, International Women’s Day, we here at the Factory thought it would be nice to highlight the work of an overlooked female artist. With this mandate in mind, we were happy to discover the work...
Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 11:02
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By Adrian Deakes, Performance Education Manager. The V&A’s major exhibition of one of Britain’s most iconic musicians, ‘David Bowie is’ opens on 23 March and runs until 11 August 2013. As the learning representative for the exhibition, one idea for a schools’ project was to work with students from his Secondary school on ideas inspired by the show. Was the school...
Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 10:21
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By William Newton, Collections Management Assistant, Clothworkers' Centre for Textiles and Fashion Study and ConservationThere are many kinds of spaces within the Museum. There are the galleries, in which the public roam and (presumably) find themselves inspired. There’s the garden, where children can soak themselves and their guardians’ lunches with lovely cool water. There...
Friday, March 1, 2013 - 09:30
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1 March marks St David’s day. So it’s time to wear your daffodils with pride and celebrate all things Welsh.Theatre costume, unknown maker, 1960s. Museum no. S.955 to B-1984 © Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonThe V&A holds a large collection of items that hail from Cymru, including ceramics and 19th century photography. But if you delve a little deeper into Search the...
Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - 11:50
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By Paula Nuttall, Director of Late Medieval to Early Renaissance Year Course. This statuette of the Virgin Mary with the dead Christ on her knee is a small masterpiece of alabaster carving. Just under 40 cm in height, it was made in the Southern Netherlands by a sculptor known, slightly confusingly, as the Master of Rimini (after an alabaster Crucifixion scene now in a museum in Frankfurt, which...
Friday, February 22, 2013 - 11:34
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This second blog entry follows the exciting (and relieving!) recent news that our project has been successful in our bid to the HLF (Heritage Lottery Fund) for funding to support the completion of the galleries. As well as a reason for celebration, this achievement provides a good moment to briefly reflect on how far the project has already come since its initial inception back in November 2009....
Thursday, February 21, 2013 - 10:55
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By Christopher Wilk, Keeper, Furniture, Textiles & Fashion Department.In an installation commissioned for Tate Britain’s major Kurt Schwitters exhibition, the artist Adam Chodzko has reconfigured the V&A’s Kaufmann Office designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Designed in 1937, the office was used by Edgar Kaufmann in his Pittsburgh department store until his death...