Arts

02 Sep 09

The Pitt Rivers Museum is to receive a DCMS/Wolfson award.

Oxford University museums have been awarded more than £1/4 million in the annual awards to UK museums by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)/Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund.

The Ashmolean, the Pitt Rivers, and the Museum of Natural History will together receive £272,000 out of this year's £4m award to 34 UK museums.

Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean Museum has been awarded £122,000 to create its new textiles gallery. One of the Ashmolean’s best-kept secrets is its large collection of textiles. The DCMS/Wolfson grant will fund showcases, environmental control, plus interpretative material such as labels, graphic panels, and interactives for the new Textiles Gallery.

The Textiles Gallery, which is also supported by The Clothworkers’ Foundation, will focus on the making and meaning of textiles in the widest cultural setting. Cross-cultural displays will investigate the social role of textiles as dress, furnishings and ceremonial objects, all of which have been and remain firm markers of social identity and status.

Commenting on the award, Dr Christopher Brown, Director of the Ashmolean Museum, said: 'We are extremely grateful to DCMS/Wolfson whose grant will enable us, for the very first time, to display a far greater percentage of our textiles collection, which comprises over 4,000 pieces. At long last, we will reveal our previously hidden treasures for all our visitors to enjoy.’

Pitt Rivers Museum

The Pitt Rivers Museum has been awarded £50,000, which will fund the provision of new display cases and improvements to lighting in the galleries. The award will allow the Museum to create new display cases in traditional Pitt Rivers’ style on the Upper Gallery, and to upgrade out-of-case lighting on both Lower and Upper galleries.

The current track lighting will be replaced with a more flexible system, offering the capacity to dim, rotate and reduce reflection and dazzle as necessary, improving visibility for everyone, particularly visitors with disabilities who are disadvantaged by glaring ceiling lights. The new lights will also be more energy efficient and less obtrusive, helping to maintain the Museum’s period charm.

The award will additionally support the creation of a new set of display cases, continuing the process of sympathetic restoration and adding to the ‘wonder cabinet’ aspect of the Museum, to which visitors are so attracted.

Michael O’Hanlon, the Museum’s Director, said: ‘Our visitor numbers have doubled since the Museum re-opened in May following redevelopment.  This generous award will enable all visitors, old and new, to appreciate even more clearly the richness of the collections that make up this unique museum.’

Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History has been awarded £100,000, which will allow the museum to continue the renewal of its displays, building on previous awards from DCMS/Wolfson that began in 2002/3.

The present phase will provide new cases in the upper galleries of the Museum. A 40 metre run of cases will house exhibits of birds, linked to themes such as habitat and lifestyle, as well as endangered and extinct species. Other new cases will deal with the ecology and diversity of local habitats – the natural history of the Oxford region.

A third theme will have an evolutionary subject in the context of the 1860 debate on Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. This was held in the Museum between Thomas Henry Huxley – Darwin’s Bulldog – and William Wilberforce – the Bishop of Oxford.

Jim Kennedy, the Museum’s Director, welcomed the continuing support of DCMS/Wolfson, and the matching funding provided by the EPA Cephalosporin Fund. ‘In recent years we have reinvented ourselves. The timing and subjects of the award mark the near completion of our display renewal programme, which will fall in the 150th anniversary year of Oxford’s most visited museum, with over 448,000 visitors in 2008–9.’

Culture Minister Barbara Follett said: ‘We are fortunate to have so many excellent museums and galleries in this country. These grants help provide the extras that normal funding sometimes cannot reach, going towards good quality museum projects that will enhance displays and interpretation as well as showing good value for money.’

Paul Ramsbottom, executive secretary of the Wolfson Foundation, said: ‘The quality of applications received was extremely high, and the projects funded will help to improve the enjoyment of this country's diverse and wonderful heritage collections.’