Imagining the Divine Free Displays • Talks Founder’s Festival Lates • Family Fun Gallery Activities Courses • Music OCT 2017–JAN 2018 1 OPENING TIMES Tue–Sun 10am–5pm CONTENTS Bank Holiday Mondays 10am–5pm Closed 24 & 25 December SPECIAL EXHIBITION 4 BOOKING In person FREE EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS 6 Buy tickets to our exhibitions, talks, events and activities at the Museum Information Desk, in TALKS 8 advance or on the day. COURSES & WORKSHOPS 12 Tue–Sun & Bank Holidays 10am–4pm Online GALLERY ACTIVITIES 13 ashmolean.org/tickets Secure 24h online booking. MUSIC 14 Booking fee per transaction: £1 BIG WEEKENDS 15 Telephone & Email LIVEFRIDAY 16 01865 278112 Tue–Sun & Bank Holidays 10am–4pm LATES 17 Please leave a voicemail, or email [email protected]. TOURS 18 We aim to respond within 48hrs. Booking fee per transaction: £2 FAMILY FUN 19 Booking fees There is no booking fee when tickets are purchased in person from the Information Desk. Booking fees correct at the time of Cover Image: going to print. Footprints of the Buddha, limestone, 2nd–3rd century, Amaravati, India © Trustees of the British Museum ACCESSIBILITY There is access throughout the Museum except Beaumont Street for the lower-ground floor of the Cast Gallery Oxford OX1 2PH which is regrettably only accessible by stairs Telephone: 01865 278 000 due to the layout of the historic building. www.ashmolean.org There are ramps into the building and lifts to all other floors. Wheelchairs are available. We can arrange free touch tours and description tours for visitors with visual impairments and those who need an accompanied visit. For more information, call 01865 278015. SOCIAL Discover more inspiration, news and exclusive images on our social channels. @AshmoleanMuseum Designed by Lucy Killoran. The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology, opened in 1683. It is the oldest public museum in the world and has incredibly rich and diverse collections from around the globe, ranging from Egyptian mummies and classical sculpture to the Pre-Raphaelites and modern art. AUTUMN AT THE ASHMOLEAN Xa Sturgis, Director Marking the 400th anniversary of religious experimentation when the visual identities of the birth of our founder by which we still recognise the world’s major religions Elias Ashmole, this autumn we were forged. The exhibition not only includes many open an exciting new gallery beautiful things (including some of the earliest which tells the story of the representations of Christ and Buddha) but also raises foundation of the Ashmolean. big questions about how different cultures have Central to this dramatic new sought to make their Gods visible and how different space is Powhatan’s Mantle, cultures and traditions interacted with and influenced one of the most important each other. pieces in our founding collection. It is housed in a new case which we were able to purchase with the To coincide with our exhibition and to mark the generous help of donations to our Annual Appeal. beginning of the festive period November sees our A huge thank you to all who contributed and to all OneWorld Weekend; a festival of talks, performances our Friends and Members, whose support allows us and activities for all ages exploring the cultural to continue making the human stories behind our traditions of different faiths and communities, objects accessible for all. Join us in October for our including light, music & food, and the connections Founder’s Festival, a whole weekend of activities between them. Make sure to check our Christmas celebrating our origins as the world’s first purpose opening hours at this busy time to get the most out of built public museum. your visit. Our usual programme of free tours, talks, activities and workshops remains full of fascinating Our new exhibition, Imagining the Divine: Art options for all, and don’t miss our newly refurbished and the Rise of World Religions, is the first major cafe for warmth and refreshment as the year draws exhibition to explore the visual cultures of Buddhism, to a close. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism as these five religions spread across Asia and Europe in the first millennium. It explores this extraordinary period THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP! The Ashmolean depends on its many supporters and donors in everything it does. Your support is important to us and has enabled us to inspire and educate a new generation of visitors. www.ashmolean.org/support 3 Mosaic fragment depicting Christ, stone mosaic, 4th century, In partnership with Hinton St Mary, Dorset © Trustees of the British Museum 4 SPECIAL EXHIBITION SPECIAL EXHIBITION “Unmissable... a fascinating journey through the art of religions from India to Ireland“ – Mary Beard IMAGINING THE DIVINE Art and the Rise of World Religions 19 October 2017–18 February 2018 This is the first major exhibition to explore the art of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism as religion spread across the world in the first millennium AD. Today, the visual identities of these world religions are distinctive and immediately recognizable, but new research by the British Museum and University of Oxford show that that these visual identities did not develop in isolation within each individual religion. Quite the opposite. As new Footprints of the Buddha, limestone, belief systems developed and spread across ancient empires, they 2nd–3rd century, Amaravati, India shaped the appearance of their gods in reaction to the religious images © Trustees of the British Museum they encountered; adapting, adopting or rejecting what already existed. The exhibition includes some of the world’s oldest religious works of art MEMBERS such as the first known depiction of Christ north of the Alps; and some of GET IN the first surviving Qurans. Visit this fascinating show and discover how these early representations were transformed over the centuries into the FREE familiar iconography of the modern world. The Leverhulme Trust has generously funded the Empires of Faith research project. Exhibition supported by: The Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, The Patrons of the Ashmolean. Additional support from: The British Museum, The Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, Wolfson College Oxford, Corpus Christi College Oxford, the EXHIBITION Soudavar Memorial Fund, Richard and Jacqueline Worswick. EVENTS EVENT Exhibition Tours Wednesdays, 3.30–4.15pm TICKETS Saturday Tour Standard £10 (£11 inc. Gift Aid) Sat 18 Nov, 11.30am & 2.30pm Concessions £9 (£10 inc. Gift Aid) Talking Religion Gallery Talks FREE for Ashmolean Members and under-12s Selected dates, 12.15–1pm Extended opening hours: 27 Oct, 17 Nov, 26 Jan & 17 Feb, until 8pm Exhibition Galleries, free with the price of admission, no booking required. Visit www.ashmolean. Book now www.ashmolean.org/imaginingthedivine org/imaginingthedivine for details. For more exhibition events see pages 8–11 & 17. SPECIAL EXHIBITION 5 FREE EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS Temporary displays from our vast collection, plus highlights from recent research. Aksum: a Late Antique Empire of Faith in Africa 26 Sep 2017–14 Jan 2018, Money Gallery Explore the religious and ideological history of the Aksumite empire in the light of the coins produced from the late 3rd century to c. 620. The Ashmolean has a world-class collection of such coins, with a very heavy concentration of gold issues by the kings. Old Traditions New Visions: Art in India and Pakistan after 1947 15 Sep 2017–18 Mar 2018, Gallery 29 After the political freedom gained Contemporary Japanese Tea Wares in 1947, Indian and Pakistani artists 3 Oct 2017–Jan 2018, Gallery 36 faced a significant challenge to express the new nations’ distinctive The preparation of tea in a formal ‘ceremony’ has been practised character and visions. Artists sought in Japan since the 1400s. This display is one of several events new modes of expression, engaging organized at the Ashmolean for the international Arethé Festival, with the modern European art which spotlights the arts of Japanese tea today. See page 12 for movements but remaining oriented information about our Japanese Ceramics and Way of Tea event. toward their own traditions. 6 FREE DISPLAYS Qu Leilei: A Chinese Artist in Britain 7 Nov 2017–15 Apr 2018, Gallery 11 Curator’s Tour Fri 1 Dec, 2.15–3pm, Gallery 11 Exhibition curator Dr Yan Liu will introduce the art and Contemporary Chinese artist Qu Leilei (b. 1951) life of contemporary artist Qu Leilei. was a founding member of the avant-garde ‘Stars Free, booking essential. Group’ in the late 1970s, and immigrated to England in 1985. This exhibition shows his progression Qu Leilei: The Stars and After Symposium from calligraphic collage to an exploration of a new Sun 24 Nov, 10.30am–4.45pm, Lecture Theatre vocabulary of ink language blending lively brushwork Experts from the Ashmolean, the University of Oxford, with western technique. Sotheby’s Institute of Art and the Musée Cernuschi will discuss different aspects of Qu Leilei’s painting and explore his story within the context of Chinese art history, concluding with an in conversation event with the artist himself. £20/£10, free for University of Oxford Students, booking essential. Francis Newton Souza (1924–2002), Christ on Palm Sunday, 1959 © Estate of F N Souza. All rights reserved, DACS 2017 Gold coin of Ezanas of Aksum, pre-Christian period, mid 340s–360 Tsujimura Shirō (b. 1947), Ido stoneware tea bowl © Tsujimura Shirō Qu Leilei (b. 1951), Friendship, 2012 © Qu Leilei FREE DISPLAYS 7 TALKS Join us for one of our talks on art and archaeology delivered by experts in the field. Imagining the Divine: Art and the EXHIBITION Rise of World Religions EVENT With Prof Mary Beard, Cambridge University, and Neil MacGregor, Humboldt Forum, previously Director of the British Museum Wed 17 Jan, 6–8pm, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford TICKETS: FREE, booking essential How did contemporary religions develop, and what relevance does the story of their evolution have today? Join Professor Mary Beard and Neil MacGregor, two of the UK’s most prominent historians, as they investigate the transition between the ancient and medieval worlds across Eurasia and Africa.