Open AccessWhat I think of as my heritage
Author(s) -
Kenneth Hudson
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
nordisk museologi
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2002-0503
pISSN - 1103-8152
DOI - 10.5617/nm.3834
Subject(s) - george (robot) , instinct , painting , period (music) , history , art history , visual arts , the arts , art , archaeology , aesthetics , evolutionary biology , biology
A few years ago I was in Richmond, Virginia, and while I was there I paid a visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. One department contained a collection of paintings devoted to sporting subjects. This had been given to the Museum by a rich man who had brought it together over a period ofmore than 30 years. The pictures were mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries and a high proportion of the artists were British. There was a particularly fine series of works by George Stubbs.As soon as I realised what I was looking at, I began to boil with rage, although I managed to conceal this from my very kind host. What so incensed me was the fact that pictures which I regarded as part of my heritage had been bought by an American and transported bound and helpless across the Atlantic to a place which did not deserve to have them, a museum where they did not belong. My reaction was purely emotional and instinctive. Stubbs was there and I felt that he had been stolen from me.