Rethinking the Genius of Grinling Gibbons
The Sixth Fairfax House Symposium in Georgian Studies
FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER 2018
CALL FOR PAPERS
The sixth Fairfax House Symposium in Georgian Studies, held in conjunction with the exhibition ‘The Genius of Grinling Gibbons’ at Fairfax House, and in partnership with the History of Art department at the University of York, aims to stimulate new thinking and new perspectives on the life, work, legacy, and significance of Grinling Gibbons, master carver of Restoration England.
Gibbons is a celebrated figure, yet much about his life and work remains obscure and contentious: not least, the difficulties of attribution have meant that the exact extent, chronology, and character of his oeuvre remain unclear. Similarly, as a ‘great figure’ of the Restoration, he has tended to be considered in isolation rather than placed in his social, political, scientific, architectural, and artistic contexts, while his position within the marginalized field of decorative arts has distorted the scholarly and antiquarian perspectives through which he has been viewed. Questions of patronage, politics, artistic influence, and the collaborative and workshop cultures of creation, as well as the national identity ascribed to this ‘English genius’ who was born and trained in the Netherlands, may all require reassessment. The 370th anniversary of Gibbons’ birth (and the 350th anniversary of his arrival in York) provide an opportune moment to draw together the knowledge gained from previous generations of scholarship, to stimulate new ideas and perspectives, and to rethink the perception and reality of ‘England’s Master Carver’.
Proposals for papers dealing with ‘rethinking’ Grinling Gibbons are enthusiastically invited for potential inclusion in a one-day interdisciplinary symposium. We are keen to encourage participation from people from a wide range of disciplines and career profiles: museum professionals and volunteers, early career and distinguished scholars, curators and teachers in higher education, as well as artists, craftspeople and other practitioners.
We are seeking (1) more formal 20 minutes papers to be presented in panels organised around relevant themes, and (2) 10 minute object-based presentations and discussions which can be informal or formal in nature, focused on a particular work by or relevant to Gibbons.
Please send proposals for either section 1 (formal 20-minute papers) or section 2 (10-minute object-based presentations), accompanied by a brief biography, to:
[log in to unmask] by 31 August 2018.
Any queries about the symposium should be sent to the same address.
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