Dean’s Lecture | Duncan Robinson

The Fitzwilliam Museum was founded in 1816 by the bequest made to the University of Cambridge by a wealthy alumnus, Richard Viscount Fitzwilliam.

In this lecture, Duncan Robinson traces its development, reflected in its architecture, from the private collection of an 18th Century aristocrat to its position today as one of Britain’s foremost art museums in which full, public access is combined with objects-based research, conservation facilities and teaching at all levels in order to fulfil its founder’s commitment to ‘the increase of learning.’

Duncan Robinson, CBE, FSA, was, until his retirement in 2012, the Master of Magdalene College Cambridge, and a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He is a graduate of both Cambridge and Yale Universities and a former Professorial Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.

He worked at the Fitzwilliam as Assistant Keeper then Keeper of Paintings and Drawings, 1970-81. He then became the Director of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, 1981-95, before returning to Cambridge to take up the Directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum (1995-2007.)

Mr Robinson served as one of the first members of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board (1998-2003). He was a Governor of the South Eastern Museums Service, 1997-9, of the Museums Service, East of England, 2002-3, and of its successor body, East England Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, 2003-4.

In recent years he has been a trustee of a number of bodies. He currently chairs the Henry Moore Foundation, the City of Cambridge’s Public Art Panel and the University of Cambridge’s Advisory Panel on Human Remains.

Date: Wednesday, 26 March 2021 | 6.45pm – 7.45pm
Venue: Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville

Free public lecture, registration recommended. Register here.