Birth of a Collection: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts and the National Gallery

In December 2012, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham commemorates the 80th anniversary of its foundation. This exhibition will form part of a year-long programme to celebrate the occasion. It will also be one of the key manifestations of a formal research partnership between the National Gallery and the Barber. 'Birth of a Collection' will explore the very earliest acquisitions made for the Henry Barber Trust by Professor Thomas Bodkin, the first director of the Barber Institute (1935–52). It will focus on the 12 superb Old Master and 19th-century paintings he purchased while the building was being constructed (1936–9). In this period, most of these paintings were loaned to, and displayed or stored at, the National Gallery, thanks to the support and friendship of the brilliant young director, Kenneth Clark. For the first time in over 70 years the exhibition will reunite this group of outstanding paintings in Trafalgar Square. Old Master paintings in the loan include works by Simone Martini, Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano, Frans Hals and Nicolas Poussin. From the 19th century are masterpieces by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Claude Monet and Edouard Manet.