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SUMMARY:‘Giving it back - restitution\, repatriation and the deconstruct
 ion of the world museum’ - Libby Howie
DTSTART:20230530T121000Z
DTEND:20230530T130000Z
UID:TALK200536@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Bea Simpson
DESCRIPTION:I was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and Girton Colle
 ge Cambridge\, where I read English Literature. On leaving Cambridge I joi
 ned Sotheby’s where I trained in the Department of Prints and Drawings\,
  becoming\, when I was 24\, the first woman auctioneer (see photo for typi
 cal toe-curling press response). I stayed at Sotheby’s for nine years\, 
 then after a couple of rather terrifying years at Marlborough Fine Art lea
 rning the art trade from the gallery side\, I started my own business as a
 n art dealer\, which I have continued ever since. I now work mainly as a p
 rivate curator for a collector of 20th century paintings and sculpture who
 se collections I have been helping to build for many years. I have two chi
 ldren\; Alice\, who is a lawyer\, and Tom\, who is also in the art world.\
 n\nAbstract \nThis talk is about the much debated topic on restitution and
  Western museums - all the questions around collecting stuff\, grabbing st
 uff\, preserving stuff from other cultures and what happens when those cul
 tures ask for their stuff back. How and when should Museums do restitution
 ? Can we even have ‘world museums’ any more? Who decides what is a wor
 k of art and what is a piece of anthropological evidence? Do objects thems
 elves acquire rights Unesco-style? I am especially interested in so-called
  ethnographical objects. I think the way that restitution has been carried
  for families whose works were taken in the second world war could be much
  more generally applied\, but has up to now been largely confined to recen
 t - and western - appropriation\, except in the case of ancestral bones. 
LOCATION:1 Newnham Terrace\, Darwin College
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