February 1993 BULLETIN ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS Registered Charity No. 2825 79 Editor: Jannet King, 48 Stafford Road, Brighton BNl 5PF Tel: 0273 509653 Advertising Manager: Kate Woodhead, Dog and Partridge House, Byley, Cheshire CWIO 9NJ Tel: 0606 835517 NEWS REPOR REPORT ON AUTUMN EXECUTIVE MEETINGS The EC met twice during the autumn period, members of the Executive itself, is the These will be put to the membership in once for a regular business meeting and in business of a third group. It is becoming General Meeting in April as an amendment special session to discuss the middle- and increasingly hard to find members of to the constitution. The Executive also long-term strategy of the Association. The the Association willing to volunteer for learned of a worrying list of resignations strategy meeting followed up Theo the various posts which have to be filled and put its collective mind to filling various Cowdell's Bulletin paper on 'The Way and our budget will only allow us to posts: that of the Hon Secretary, the Chairs Forward' with a wide-ranging discussion 'buy in' a certain amount of professional of the Freelance and Schools Committee on an important range of issues. The help. and of the Bulletin Editor, which last we committee aims to table a full planning » A fourth group is considering how to agreed to defer until our strategy discussions paper to the membership at the 1993 AGM; provide extra events for the membership are completed. New support was pledged meanwhile small working parties are and how to identify and plan the kinds of to the Students Subcommittee in their preparing reports on aspects of the matter activities that would be popular and efforts to produce a Careers Booklet for for further consideration at the February useful. use by Art History graduates. The new regime at the journal Art History also Executive. Thus far the general question of i Our final concern is with the professional generated some business, most notably the how the Association should develop has profile of art history in Britain and how question of establishing funding to make resolved into the following areas of debate: and if the Association should stimulate sure that the editorial team is able to attend • One group is considering the function, and encourage academic research in the conferences and make contact with contents and production of the Bulletin subject at different levels. prospective contributors. and evaluating the role of its Editor. These colleagues are also considering During our next meeting we shall be In the financial report we heard the whether to recommend that the Bulletin considering draft proposals on 'The Way excellent news that Peter Crocker's many be supplemented by a less formal Forward' which we can amend to constitute hours of negotiations with the VAT information sheet, possibly including a a definitive document for presentation and authorities have finally resulted in a 'Situations Vacant' service. debate at the April 1993 AGM. Meanwhile, substantial rebate - congratulations to him • A second team has the task of reviewing I would be delighted to hear from members and to HM Customs & Excise! We also the Association's financial position and with suggestions under these or any other discussed the situation regarding the the crucial matter of membership topics: our aim is to lead but at the same teaching and study of art history in Eastern numbers and fees. As they stand at time generate discussion within the Europe and ways in which the Association present, membership fees in certain Association and respond to its collective might support our hard-pressed colleagues. categories do not cover outgoings and needs. The Executive hopes to announce a major so the consequences of an extensive Important items of business included initiative on this front and, meanwhile, membership drive have to be fully the adoption of the draft statutes (published would very much like to receive names and considered. elsewhere in this Bulletin) of the British addresses of art historians in the former Warsaw Pact countries whom we might, in • The role and recruitment of the National Committee of the Comite future, contact. Less positively, it was Association's officers, including International d' Histoire de 1'Art (CIHA). NEWS REPORTS agreed that we should write seeking clarification of the University of Edinburgh's policy regarding its art COPY DEADLINES FOR BULLETIN collection, given the press reports about The copy deadlines for the Bulletin are the beginning of the month prior to that the uncertain fate of certain objects, and to of publication. Please note, therefore, the following deadlines for the 1993 English Heritage expressing the issues: Association's concern at some of the 1 April (for May issue) implications of their paper Managing 1 July (for August issue) England's Heritage (published in October 1 October (for November issue) 1992). Copy should be sent to: Jannet King, 48 Stafford Road, Brighton, BN1 5PF Nigel Llewellyn, Chair Tel: 0273 509653. January 1993 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Minutes of the 18th Annual General Meeting, held at Leeds Polytechnic on 12 April 1992 Executive Present 3 Chair's Report completed shortly to put the DPA post on Martin Kemp, Nigel Llewellyn, Elizabeth This report was given at the end of the third a fair and reasonable financial footing. Miller, Theo Cowdell, Kate Woodhead, year of Professor Martin Kemp's three- Peter Crocker, Neil McWilliam, Joanna year term of office. The Chair believed Co mite International d'Histoire de I9Art Woodall, Liam Kelly, Charles Saumarez that three years was the optimum length for (CIHA): The UK national committee of Smith, Deirdre Robson, Monika Puloy, holding this office in view of growing this body is organising an international William Vaughan, Jonathan Harris, institutional pressures, although he congress for the year 2000. Professor John Anthony Hughes. questioned if it was advisable for the AAH White is Chair of this until the Berlin CIHA Chair also to be the Chair of the Editorial conference in the summer of 1992. Much 1 Executive Apologies Board of Art History, as this represented a work had already been put in by Professor Clare Pumfrey, Sarat Maharaj, Howard heavy double commitment. David Bindman and John House. A more Hollands, Clare Ford-Wille, Rowan accountable relationship between the AAH Watson, Tag Gronberg. Kate Woodhead: MK expressed his thanks and CIHA was being actively pursued on to Kate Woodhead the new Director of both sides, in the light of CIHA being a 2 Minutes of the 17th AGM, 14 April Publicity and Administration (DP A) on the self-appointed but affiliated body of the 1991 completion of her first year in the post, AAH. It was hoped to transform the UK These were signed as correct. which had originally grown up ad hoc in CIHA Committee along democratic lines. combination with Advertising Manager for It would then become [much more] an Matters Arising: The document Art History, the latter paid for by Blackwell. elective AAH body, though remaining Guidelines for the Professional Practice of The Executive felt the work for Art History distinct from the AAH Executive. The Art History had been published in the first should go with the post of DPA. reform being proposed at the Berlin issue of International Journal of Cultural Negotiations had taken place with conference was that the CIHA national Property, 1992. A mechanism had been Blackwell and through a series of committees should be proposed by the agreed whereby members raising matters unfortunate circumstances these had been national associations where these existed. of concern relating to the Guidelines were untidy and unhappy for the individuals The AAH Chair had written to other national in the first instance to contact the Chair and concerned. An agreement satisfactory to associations on this basis. if necessary they would then be referred to all parties had now been reached so that a subcommittee chaired by Professor John KW would be the Art History Advertising Museums and Galleries Subcommittee: Steer. None of the cases raised in the past Manager from 1993 issues onwards. This had disbanded itself in the past year year had run as far as the subcommittee. Discussions with the Treasurer would be but moves were afoot to reconstitute it. 2 NEWS REPORTS This sector of the membership represented Major New Issues: Yugoslavia during the current conflict. a strong axis within the Association whose (i) The end of the binary divide between (vii) The proposed sale of paintings from power needed to be harnessed. universities and polytechnics which had Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, previously been reflected in separate AAH which had not yet been resolved. Students Subcommittee: Saul Peake of subcommittees. (viii) The conference on curatorial the University of Kent at Canterbury had (ii) The University Funding Council training Staying on Course, organised carried this forward during 1992, but had Research Selectivity Exercise. This had jointly by the AAH, the Museums been unable to attend at Leeds. been brought forward by a year. In the Association and the Museum Trainers preceding round the AAH had been Forum. AAH Book Fair: The fact that the 1991 consulted and had drawn attention to (ix) The suggestion that the 1994 annual book fair had, for a number of reasons, not weaknesses in the process. In the current conference be held in Holland. coincided with the annual conference had round the AAH was being asked to Correspondence with Holland on this caused members concern. It had taken nominate between five and eight possibility had proved slow moving. place instead on 8 and 9 November in the individuals, plus a supplementary list of Orange Street entrance of the National three, to cover the subject.