AWARD HISTORY

COLLECTIONS ACCESS GRANTS

• 2024 Collections Access Grant awarded to Manx National Heritage, Isle of Man

Image: Liberty Tudric Pewter Bowl by Archibald Knox, 1898–1912. © Manx National Heritage

Manx National Heritage is partnering with the Archibald Knox Forum to put on the largest exhibition on Archibald Knox to date. The exhibition `KNOX: Order and Beauty’ will run from 5 April, 2025 to 1 March, 2026. Knox was born and lived most of his life in the Isle of Man and was strongly influenced by Manx culture and landscape. The exhibition will bring together over 200 objects designed by Knox, many of which have not been on public view before, to tell the story of Knox’s life and work. The CAG (£5800) will fund a large built-in wall case (10 metres long and 3 metres high) in the National Art Gallery at the Manx Museum for the display of over 100 objects designed by Knox. After the exhibition the case will allow the Manx Museum to show much more of its decorative arts collection, and particularly to continue to show Knox’s designs.

• 2024 Collections Access Grant awarded to David Parr House, Cambridge

Image: Hand-painted walls © David Parr House

David Parr, a decorative artist with F. R. Leach & Sons who worked with many of the top designers and architects of the day, purchased a modest terraced house in 1886. For the next 40 years he decorated the house in the style of the grand interiors he worked on every day. The house became a microcosm of the Arts and Crafts era. The home was preserved by Parr’s granddaughter who lived there for over 85 years. In 2014 a charity was set-up to conserve and open the house to the public which it did in 2019. Within the collection is much archival material such as photographs, letters and notebooks and the CAG (£5000) is for a special display case to exhibit this type of material, including sketchbooks loaned by the family, in changing, thematic displays.

• 2024 Collections Access Grant awarded to De Morgan Foundation, Barnsley

Image: Bird and Fish Rice Dish by William De Morgan, c. 1890 © Trustees of the De Morgan Foundation

The De Morgan Collection comprises around 2500 ceramics, drawings and paintings by visionary artist spouses William (1839-1917) and Evelyn (1855-1919) De Morgan. The Foundation displays its collection at its museum in Barnsley (at Cannon Hall), its partner venues at Watts Gallery, the Ashmolean and Wightwick Manor as well as in touring exhibitions. In 2024 the stock of the 2014 guidebook to the collection will run out. The CAG (£5000) will allow the De Morgan Foundation to produce a new guidebook incorporating much new research and new images. Through engaging narrratives, vivid imagery and detailed descriptions, readers will gain a deeper understanding of the historical context and artistic significance of 50 key artworks from the collection.

• 2024 Collections Access Grant awarded to Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham

 

Image: The Waldegrave door handle, commissioned for Strawberry Hill by Lady Frances Waldegrave (1821-1879), © Strawberry Hill House & Gardens. Photo: Killian O'Sullivan

Strawberry Hill House, renowned for its Gothic Revival architecture and association with Horace Walpole, has a rich but as yet unexplored later 19^th century history. The house was occupied, furnished, and decorated with sumptuous collections by two owners during this period: Lady Frances Waldegrave and the Stern family, particularly Herbert (1851-1919) and his wife Geraldine (1882-1927). The CAG (£5000) supports a project to research, document and preserve the tangible signs of the Waldegrave and Stern presence at the house, including decorative arts objects, architectural elements such as stained glass, tiles and an extensive collection of wallpapers, and Victorian-era renovations. This project is the starting point for integrating these figures into the permanent interpretation of the house and creating a special Waldegrave and Stern webpage on Strawberry Hill House website. 

• 2023 The Stourbridge Glass Museum for new casework to display archival material including Stevens and Williams pattern and design books, Whitefriars factory set of designs and glassmakers’ drawing boards and the Keith Murray description book and original designs for glass (£5000).

 

• 2023 Dorich House Museum in Kingston upon Thames towards research and publication of an illustrated catalogue of Richard Hare’s Russian collection, focussing on the late 19th and early 20th century lacquer, glass, silver and vernacular design (£5000).

 

• 2023 Lotherton Hall, Leeds for the conservation of four Arts and Crafts light fixtures in the museum’s collection, three designed by C. F. A. Voysey for Moor Crag, Windermere and one designed by W.A.S. Benson (£2500).

• 2022 The Stourbridge Glass Museum for new casework to improve the display of its collections including Amalric Walter pâte-de-verre from the early 20th century, Gray-Stan glass (1922-36) and supporting archival material (£5000).

 

• 2022 The Hepworth, Wakefield towards a new display exploring the relationship between sculpture and ceramics from the 1950s to the present (£5000).

• 2021 Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery to help fund a display case for the major exhibition of civic silver (£5000).

• 2021 Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA) at York Art Gallery to support the publication of a book on the pioneering British studio pottery collector, W. A. (Bill) Ismay (1910-2001) (£4800).

• 2020 Ushaw College for the conservation of a large, detailed 1858 bird’s eye view drawing of the college (£1500).

• 2020 William Morris Gallery for restoration of a settle, wallpapers and textiles to be displayed in an exhibition on The Century Guild (£4800).

• 2020 De Morgan Foundation for the conservation of two major oil on canvas cartoons for stained glass windows by William De Morgan (£2500).

• 2020 Bushey Museum and Art Gallery for a new case and interpretative panels which will allow a permanent display of its Bushey Heath Pottery collection (£5000).

 

• 2019 Shipley Art Gallery to create a permanent display of ceramics including highlights from art historian John Christian’s outstanding collection of British studio ceramics. (£5000)

2019 Kelmscott Manor/Society of Antiquaries to enable the redisplay in a purpose-built case of the important embroidery The Homestead and the Forest, 1890, designed by May Morris and embroidered by Jane Morris (£2500) 

• 2019 Haslemere Education Museum to publish a book entitled The Rustic Renaissance: The Haslemere Peasant Arts Movement (£5000)

• 2018 Lotherton Hall, Leeds Museums and Galleries, to conserve the pietra dura top of a table designed by William Burges (£5000)

• 2018 Kingston Museum, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, to redisplay and reinterpret part of its ceramics collections (£5000)

• 2017 Portsmouth Museum, to photograph its holding of objects originally from the Handley-Read collection (£2,000)

• 2016 William Morris Gallery, London, for conservation of a Japanese screen donated by Frank Brangwyn RA (£2,000)

• 2015 Bury Art Museum, Greater Manchester, to publish a catalogue of its collection of Pilkington’s Royal Lancastrian Pottery (£2,000)

 

• 2014 Blackwell, The Arts and Crafts House, Windermere for Lakeland Arts’ initial research on a new master bedroom and dressing room (£2,000) 

MUSEUM ACQUISITIONS

• 2024 Lakeland Arts Trust, grant towards the purchase of the Daffodil Dresser, c. 1901, designed by Mackay Hugh Baille Scott (1865–1943) for display at Blackwell House, Bowness-on-Windermere (£1600). Photo courtesy Lyon and Turnbull

• 2024 The Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library, Preston, grant to acquire a 1950s asymmetrical 'Watteau’ style evening dress by Horrockses Fashions, 1946-1983 (£450). Photo courtesy SGHA Antique Clothing

• 2023 The Bushey Museum and Art Gallery, grant towards the purchase of four enamel panels (1897-99) from a silver shield entitled The Triumph of the Hour by Sir Hubert von Herkomer (£2000).

• 2022 The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, grant towards the purchase of a Della Robbia Pottery platter, 1894, decorated by Henry Rathbone, the founder of the Pottery (£2400).

• 2022 V&A Wedgwood Collection at Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent, grant towards the purchase of a tea and coffee service designed for Wedgwood by Paul Follot (1877–1941), a French designer of luxury goods (£2000).

• 2022 Victoria & Albert Museum, London, exceptional grant towards the purchase of the export-stopped sculpture, The Death of Cleopatra, 1859, by Henri de Triqueti (£3000)

• 2020 National Museums of Liverpool for Marjorie, a watercolour of a young Bootle resident set within an enamelled Arts and Crafts frame, 1896, both by Lily Day (£425).

• 2020 The Box, Plymouth, exceptional grant towards the purchase of the export-stopped Martinware Crab salt-glazed stoneware designed by Robert Wallace Martin (£10,000)

• 2020 Leeds Museums and Galleries for three pieces of silicone jewellery by Jenny Llewellyn (£800)

• 2019 The Milford House Preservation Trust for three sculptures: a marble of Psyche and a pair of bronze runners by Joseph Uphues (£2000)

• 2018 The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, for a partial coffee set, 'Vogue' with 'Sunray' pattern, 1930-33, designed by Eric Slater, made by Shelley Potteries, Staffordshire (£750)

• 2017 Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston for six dresses by Horrockses Fashions made from fabrics designed by Alastair Morton, 1946-50 (£640)

• 2016 Victoria and Albert Museum for prototype aumbry door, 1956, by Geoffrey Clarke RA (£1160)

• 2016 British Museum for a covered, lustre vase by Pilkington, 1910, designed by Gordon Forsyth and given to Charles Hercules Read (£2000)
• 2014 Victoria and Albert Museum for double-gourd vase designed by Christopher Dresser (£2000 including gifts from individual members)
• 2014 Stained Glass Museum, Ely for four stained-glass panels by Geoffrey Clarke RA (£500)
• 2013 V & A Museum of Childhood for Joan’s Chair, 1901, designed  by Ambrose Heal (£350)

DAS STUDY TOUR BURSARIES

 

• Barbara Vujanović, Meštrović Atelier, Zagreb, Croatia (Glasgow 2018; pictured above)
• Rebecca Bell, PhD candidate, Victoria and Albert Museum / Royal College of Art (Budapest and Pécs 2018)
• Simon Spier, PhD candidate, University of Leeds (Lille 2017)
• Elizabeth Bisley, Victoria and Albert Museum (Helsinki 2016)
• Helen Ritchie, British Museum (Helsinki 2016) 
• Lesley Richardson, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle (Paris 2014)
• Dr Rachel Conroy, National Museum Wales (Czech Republic 2014)
• Dr Melanie Vandenbrouck, Royal Museums, Greenwich (New York 2013)

The institutions listed are where the awardees worked when applying for the bursary.

RESEARCH TRAVEL GRANTS

• 2025 Roisin Inglesby, curator at the William Morris Gallery, for a study trip to Paris, Brussels and Ghent to visit design and industry museums and meet with their curators. This research will inform a planned exhibition Making is Work: Stories in Industrial Craft.
• 2025 Emma Davis, PhD student, Universities of Exeter and Bristol, to attend 2025 Association for Art History Conference in York. Emma is researching Thérèse Lessore (1884–1945), whose 40-year career challenges boundaries between fine and decorative art and craft and design.
• 2023 Dr Helen Shaw, research manager at Queen Mary University, London for research in the Poole Pottery archives related to civic mural commissions and particularly two at Queen Mary University.
• 2022 Dr Jareh Das, independent scholar and curator, for a research trip to Nigeria to investigate the life of Ladi Kwali, her ceramics, her links with Michael Cardew and her legacy both in Nigeria and the wider world.
• 2019 Ngozi Ikoku, independent scholar, for research into the history of animal skins and their patterns in textiles and dress, using objects and documentation at Mottisfont Abbey, Hampshire, The Fashion Museum Bath, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
• 2017 Benjamin Angwin, PhD candidate, Kingston University, London for research into the Omega Workshops at the Harry Ransome Center, University of Texas at Austin.

 AD HOC GRANTS

• 2024 Contribution towards photographic reproduction fees for the book The Collections of Alfred Morrison (1821-1897): Millionaire Shopping edited by Caroline Dakers (£538).
• 2021 William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow for sponsorship of the House under the Firs model in the exhibition Young Poland (£3000 from funds raised in honour of the chairmanship of Robert Wilson).
• 2021 Contribution towards the publication of Collinson and Lock: Art Furnishers, Interior Decorators and Designers, 1870-1900 by Clive Edwards (£1000).
• 2021 Contribution towards photography costs for the book Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer by Petra ten-Doesschate, Max Donnelly, Andrew Montana and Suzanne Veldink (£1000).