Free entry - *the gallery is occasionally closed on Monday for meetings and events - please check availability before visiting
- This exhibition will present work drawn from the core collections of the National Arts Education Archive, based at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton.
The NAEA was established in 1985 to provide a documentary trace of the development of arts education in the UK and worldwide, by collecting children's and student's work and the papers, letters and work of key educators and artists in the visual arts, music and language. This material, comprising more than 100 catalogued collections, is based in the purpose built Lawrence Batley Centre at YSP and is available to researchers, lecturers and the general public by appointment.
NAEA holds significant sets of materials that reveal the conditions of art education and teaching in the C19th and C20th. The dynamic and radical changes in thinking and practice during this period influenced both the nature and future direction of art education and curriculum development.
In 1956 the Society for Education through Art (SEA) held a conference at Bretton Hall chaired by Sir Herbert Read. This seminal event debated the fundamentally opposing values and concerns that were central to the CHILD ART and BASIC DESIGN movements. Records of this pivotal debate and
correspondence between Alexander Barclay-Russell and Sir Herbert Read provide an important research focus within the archive.
The core collections not only provide evidence of significant 'movements' and intellectual tensions during this period but also give an historical context for the evolution and reformation of art education in schools and colleges.
Core collections:
Child Art Collections
Franz Cizek Collection
Alexander Barclay-Russell Collection
Sir Alec Clegg and the West Riding Collections
Basic Design Collections
A.E.Halliwell Collection
Learning Through Drawing Exhibition Collection
