By Ian Cox
It is with considerable pleasure that I put pen
to paper to reflect on the London Summer School of 2002. It is just
over a year since I was approached about taking on the Directorship of
this prestigious programme and nearly seven months since the school
took place in July. I am pleased to report that the programme
was a resounding success.
I was a student on the Summer School in 1992 and
took part in the programme when I was working in the History of Art
Department at the University of Glasgow. Since then I have moved on to
become Director of Studies at Christie¹s Education in London, and as
Director of the Fine and Decorative Arts programme I still make use of
knowledge learned and places visited during that special summer of
1992. Gavin Stamp was Director then and I can remember, as if it were
yesterday, the responsibilities and challenges that go with the job,
so it was with some trepidation that I took on the challenge of being
Director for the school of 2002.
My task was made easy though by the excellent
team of people I worked with. Kathleen
Bennett, Chair of the Education Committee in the US was and continues
to be a good friend all the result of us becoming pals during the
School of 92 when we were fellow students. Kit Wedd, Assistant
Director, also did the Summer School in the same year, so together
with old hands, Gavin Stamp (Director of the trip to the north of
England), Alan Crawford and Peter Howell there was an excellent team
in place to take the School forward into a new era.
In putting together a programme for 2002, Kit and
I opted for a philosophy based on conserving the best of the
traditional events associated with the longstanding history of the
programme, but at the same time injecting new things connected with
our passions for Victorian decorative arts and interiors. The end
result was something you would all recognise as typical of the London
Summer School - days and evenings packed with lectures, visits and
tours and a continuing formula based on spending the beginning and end
of the school in London, with five days in the north of England taking
in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester in the middle. Highlights such
as the visits to the Palace of Westminster and the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, the days out to Surrey houses and Oxford, and the
visits to Birkenhead, Port Sunlight, Ironbridge and Wightwick Manor
were all there. Some new high points for me as Director were the visit
to the newly refurbished Manchester City Art Gallery and to Mackintosh¹s
house in Derngate, Northampton currently undergoing restoration and
refurbishment.
All in all, the London Summer School of 2002 was
for me personally, not only a little bit of déjà vu but also a
wonderful opportunity to take responsibility for a long-standing and
prestigious course which I believe has a great future in front of it.
This programme continues to offer all those interested in
nineteenth-century architecture and design a fantastic opportunity to
develop their passion and, furthermore, to explore the transitions
into the twentieth-century. I would like to see the curriculum
continue to evolve and this year we plan to introduce a lecture on
Victorian Fine Art and to visit some of the galleries in London where
it is possible to see fine paintings from the Victorian period. We
shall surely miss, however, the Forbes Collection of Victorian
paintings at Battersea House, which was put up for auction this
Spring. We shall see instead Forbes' Victorian Royal Collection
at the same charming venue.
It has been a privilege being Director of the
2002 London Summer School and I look forward to taking up the mantle
again in 2003. A special word of thanks must also go to Susan
McCallum, Summer School Administrator. Susan has been an absolute
brick over the last twelve months and the VSA is lucky to have her in
this role. I look forward to working with her again this year. Let's
hope we can recruit another great group of students, and make this,
the twenty-ninth year of the programme, another success.
IAN COX
London
Summer School Director
London
Summer School Faculty
Ian Cox, London Summer School Director, is
Director of Studies at Christie's Education in London and formerly ran
Christie's Decorative Arts summer school program in New York. He
has regularly lectured for The Victorian Society of America.
Kit Wedd, London Summer School Assistant
Director, is former Deputy Director of The Victorian Society in
Britain and currently works as a freelance writer and editor
specializing in architectural conservation and historic preservation.
Dr. Gavin Stamp, Director of the tour of the North, is
an architectural historian, journalist and lecturer at the Mackintosh
School of Architecture.
TM