New works arrive at the CSM Museum & Study Collection

Works by alumni and teachers are welcomed into the Museum from a Derbyshire collection.

The artworks, mostly created in the mid to late 20^th century, include work by alumni who were not previously represented in the museum collection. Among the new artists represented are Judith Da Fano who studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, Stella Marsden, who was Senior Lecturer in Painting at St Martins School of Art and Jane Cummings who studied at the Central School of Arts & Crafts. We’re particularly pleased to have received so many paintings and prints by female artists. Three works by Eve Sheldon-Williams and additional works by Monica Walker and Thelma Hulbert are great additions to strengthen our representation of women who studied and taught at the institutions that make up Central Saint Martins’ history.

All these works were originally bought by the Derbyshire Schools Library Service, set up in 1936, which loaned museum-quality pictures and artefacts to schools across Derbyshire for teaching purposes. When the service closed in 2018, the objects were taken to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery for processing. The Gallery received help from an Esmée Fairbairn Collections Grant to find suitable new homes in museums and galleries across the UK, including the CSM Museum & Study Collection.

All these works were originally bought by the Derbyshire Schools Library Service, set up in 1936, which loaned museum-quality pictures and artefacts to schools across Derbyshire for teaching purposes. When the service closed in 2018, the objects were taken to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery for processing. The Gallery received help from an Esmée Fairbairn Collections Grant to find suitable new homes in museums and galleries across the UK, including the CSM Museum & Study Collection.

A still life by Morris Kestlemann is also part of the transfer, which will join drawings, watercolours and prints by Kestlemann already in the collection. Similarly, Francis Carr’s vibrant screen print of a cockerel adds another string to the collection’s bow, showing the variety of works produced by Carr from book covers to aquatints to drawings as well as archival photographs of his work.

We are thankful to the Derbyshire Schools Library Service and the staff and Buxton Museum for their generosity and for their time working on this project. We hope the CSM students and staff, as well as the public, will enjoy these works as much as we do.