Past Events
2025
22 Oct 2025
In Conversation No.3: Ritual Objects and Art at the Jewish Museum in New York
The third in our series of online 'MGHG In Conversation' events with Professor Jeffrey Abt (Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan) and Dr Susanna Avery-Quash (MGHG Board Member & Senior Research Lead: Partnerships, Networks, Initiatives at the National Gallery, London). The discussion focussed on Jeffrey's recent book, 'Too Jewish or Not Jewish Enough: Ritual Objects and Avant-Garde Art at the Jewish Museum in New York' (2024).
26-27 Sep 2025
National Gallery, London
Creating the museum: Exploring the museum impulse in local, regional and national contexts
A two-day conference focussing on why and how galleries and museums have emerged and evolved globally. The conference explored the different ways in which museums and public art galleries come into existence and the inspiration, rationale and objectives for ‘creating’ museums; and what the future impulses for creating museums might be.
Jointly organised by the National Gallery and the Museums and Galleries History Group, with support from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
13 May 2025
In Conversation No.2: The Gallery at Cleveland House
The second in our series of online MGHG In Conversation events with Dr Anne Nellis Richter (Smith College) and Dr Susanna Avery-Quash (MGHG Board Member & Senior Research Curator at the National Gallery, London). The discussion focussed on Anne’s recent book, The Gallery at Cleveland House: Displaying Art and Society in late Georgian London (2024).
2024
25 November 2024
In Conversation No.1: Museum and Exhibition cultures
The first in a new series of online MGHG In Conversation events. This discussion explored museum and exhibition cultures in the 19th century and beyond with Dr Rebecca Wade and Dr Claire Wintle, hosted by MGHG Chair Professor Mark Westgarth.
Rebecca Wade and Claire Wintle have both recently published books on public exhibition cultures - Rebecca's An Exhibition History of Victorian Leeds (2023) is a groundbreaking account of public exhibitions in Leeds in the nineteenth century, taking in the establishment of Leeds Art Gallery; Claire's edited volume (with Kate Guy and Hajra Williams), Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum: Makers, Process and Practice (2023) offers a 'behind the scenes' investigation of museum exhibition design from the 19th century to more recent times.
26 January 2024
Museum Microhistories Symposium
University of Leeds
2023
19 January 2023
Sources and Approaches in Museum History Postgraduate Study Day
Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew
26 September 2023
MGHG Annual Lecture
Richard Bruce Parkingson
A Great Unrecorded History
2021
14-16 July 2021
Museum Networks and Museum History online conference
2019
4 July 2019
MGHG Annual Lecture
Professor Elizabeth Edwards
Collections, Non-collections and Ecosystems: Case notes on photographic cultures in the Museum
2018
13-14 July 2018
Museums, Collections & Conflict, 1500-2010 Conference at the National Maritime Museum
2017
21 September 2017
Inaugural Annual Lecture by Professor Ludmilla Jordanova
2016
7-8 September 2016
Gendering Museum Histories Conference at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology
2015
13 July 2015
Using Museum Archives Workshop at the British Museum
2014
12-13 September 2014
Houses as Museums/Museums as Houses Conference at the Wallace Collection
2013
2 March 2013
Between Art and Information: Collecting Photographs Study Day with the Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University
Link to the resulting Photographs, Museums, Collections: Between Art and Information publication
2012
12-13 October 2012
Artists Work in the Museum: Histories, Interventions and Subjectivity Conference with the Victoria and Albert Museum
12-13 July 2012
Cultures of Curating: Curatorial Practices and the Production of Meaning c. 1650-2000 Conference at the University of Lincoln
Link to the resulting special issue of Museums History Journal
2011
21 May 2011
Lost Museums Study Day at the Hunterian Museum
2010
10-11 September 2010
Museums and the Market Conference at Leeds City Museum
2009
11-12 September 2009
Museums and Biographies Conference at the National Gallery
Link to the resulting publication Museums and Biographies: Stories, Objects, Identities
2007
6-8 September 2007
Nature Behind Glass: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Natural Science Collections Conference at Manchester Museum
Link to the resulting special issue of Museum and Society
2006
7-8 September 2006
Past and Present: Negotiating Museum and Gallery History Conference at Newcastle University
2003
18 July 2003
Museums and their Histories Inaugural Conference at the National Gallery