The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
Birmingham
B15 2TS
England
Website
General information
Telephone
0121 414 7333
Fax
0121 414 3370
Monet, Manet, and Magritte; Renoir, Rubens, Rossetti and Rodin; Degas, Delacroix and van Dyck — not to mention Turner, Gainsborough, Gauguin, van Gogh and Picasso…
You can see major works by all these great artists in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, at the University of Birmingham. There’s also a stunning coin gallery and an exciting programme of exhibitions, concerts, lectures, gallery talks, workshops and family activities.
The entire collection of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts is a Designated Collection of national importance.
Venue Type:
Gallery
Additional info
Our prints and drawings collection is available for viewing by appointment.
The entire collection of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts is a Designated Collection of national importance.
The Barber Institute houses one of the finest small collections of European art in the whole of the United Kingdom, featuring works ranging from the 13th to the 20th centuries. The holdings are a gathering of some of the most influential artists of the previous millennium, with particular strengths lying in the Old Master and Impressionist collections.
The collection is made up of paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture, and among the artists represented are Bellini, Botticelli, Veronese, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Poussin, Gainsborough, Turner, Delacroix, Ingres, Rossetti, Whistler, Manet, Degas, Monet, van Gogh, Rodin, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, Magritte, and Schiele. The Barber Institute also houses a rare collection of coins, seals and weights, chiefly from Rome, Byzantium and the Middle East.
Collection details
Weapons and War, Fine Art, Decorative and Applied Art, Costume and Textiles, Coins and Medals
Key artists and exhibits
- Designated Collection
DEFINING FACES
20TH-CENTURY PORTRAIT DRAWING
Twentieth-century portrait drawings of distinguished British writers, artists and scientists, lent by the National Portrait Gallery, London are at the centre of this exhibition, co-curated by postgraduate students from the University of Birmingham. These works will be complemented by further portrait drawings from the Barber and the University’s own collections, and will include original archive material relating to some of those represented.
The exhibition will explore the functions of portraits as commissions, preliminary sketches or learning exercises, also examining the artist/sitter relationship, biography and political context.
Admission
Free
DEFINING FACES
20TH-CENTURY PORTRAIT DRAWING
Twentieth-century portrait drawings of distinguished British writers, artists and scientists, lent by the National Portrait Gallery, London are at the centre of this exhibition, co-curated by postgraduate students from the University of Birmingham. These works will be complemented by further portrait drawings from the Barber and the University’s own collections, and will include original archive material relating to some of those represented.
The exhibition will explore the functions of portraits as commissions, preliminary sketches or learning exercises, also examining the artist/sitter relationship, biography and political context.
Suitable for
Admission
Free
ABOUT FACE
EUROPEAN OLD MASTER PORTRAITS FROM NATIONAL COLLECTIONS
Lady Barber stipulated that the collection to be acquired for the Barber Institute’s galleries should be ‘…of that standard of quality required by the National Gallery or the Wallace Collection’.
This fascinating display features major portraits by Rembrandt, Lucas van Leyden, Sir Peter Lely, Goya and Cézanne, miniatures by Hilliard and Isaac Oliver and works on paper by Van Dyck, Petitot, Charles Le Brun and Samuel Cooper, lent by major national collections including the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Courtauld Gallery. The loans will be exhibited throughout the Barber gallery alongside comparable works from its own collection, testing whether the acquisitions by the Barber Institute’s five Directors have managed to live up to its benefactress’s lofty aspirations.
Admission
Free
FIRST THOUGHTS
EARLY ACQUISITIONS OF DRAWINGS FOR THE BARBER COLLECTION
The first works acquired for the Barber in July 1936 were drawings, their subtlety appealing to the Barber’s First Director, Thomas Bodkin, who wrote: ‘Drawings evoke rather than compel emotion
they whisper rather than call to the spectator’.
Those early purchases comprised important examples by Fra Bartolommeo, Francesco Guardi, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Rubens and Claude. They were closely followed by splendid sketches by Degas, Tiepolo, Veronese, and Van Goyen, among others. These works were greatly admired by Queen Mary when she opened the Barber in July 1939.
A selection of these early drawings, first on view for Her Majesty’s pleasure, are reunited for this display.
Admission
Free
FUNCTION IV
PORTRAITURE
Talented photography students from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham City University, compete in this fourth and final annual selective exhibition collaboration. This year, the subject is portraiture, the central theme of the Barber’s 80th anniversary programme, with students responding in their own way to portraits in the collection or to the subject more widely.
Admission
Free
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