At night, when people fall asleep, the city wakes up and starts to live. And this is particularly true for Roma. There is something mystical about this eternal city which seems to transcend the reality we live in. Only at night, when the streets get empty and there are no tourists wandering through the narrow…
Audio Version Read by Christopher Williams, who also kindly fact-checked and added screen-readable art historical detail to this blog post Text Version Having served in the British infantry during the First World War, Charles Sargeant Jagger was able to create realistic war memorials that made us reflect on his identity as a historian. Instead of…
Audio version Read by Christopher Williams. Text version It begins with a box. Not a large or particularly remarkable box. Similar in size and shape to a foolscap box file. But different: an ever-so-slightly curved spine, a coarse fabric exterior. Actually, it begins before the box. Walk down a spiral staircase and then along…
I was 16 years old when I moved to my current house on the hill in Marsicovetere, Italy. I remember that the first thing I did, after throwing my stuff on the bed, was to put on a pair of comfortable shoes to reach the tiny, abandoned stone house I could see from my terrace.…
Audio version Read by Celia Cockburn. Text version As a child, growing up in a socialist household with a trade union activist as a parent, the 1960s were full of London marches and meetings. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and anti-Vietnam War causes were high on the list of mid-week and weekend activities –…
Audio version Read by Tianyu. Text version Looking at Anthony Kersting images from the Conway Library at first glance took me back to my youth. It’s fascinating how a photograph – familiar or unfamiliar – can conjure up images of your experiences from a period in your life. It might do so directly – capturing a…
Audio version Read by Faye Fornasier Text version The 27th October 2020 marks the launch of The Courtauld’s first global crowdsourcing project: World Architecture Unlocked, a transcription task on Zooniverse. From Somerset House to the Zooniverse Since we started our work to bring over 1.5 million items from The Courtauld’s photographic libraries online we knew…
Audio Version Text Version In the Conway library’s photographic collection there is a photograph of an artwork titled ‘Imagination Dead Imagine’, taken in the Whitechapel Gallery in 1991. The artwork is by David Ward, a contemporary artist (born 1951) whose works include installation, photography, light, and sound pieces. The piece consists of eight small…
Introduction by Fran Allfrey, volunteer officer You can now find over 100 photographs from the Conway Library on Layers of London. Layers of London is a fantastic resource and website run by the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. In brief, Layers of London allows you to pin photographs into a digital map of…
Audio Version Text Version In Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited two friends, Charles and Sebastian, lounge in the colonnade of Brideshead Castle, the stately home of Sebastian’s family. They have just come down from their first year at Oxford. It is a peerless summer’s day. Charles is sketching an ornamental fountain. Referring to the main…
