Join Curators Jo Meacock & Nelson Cummins to discuss how/if Glasgow Museums should display & contextualize problematic paintings.
The title of John Duncan’s ‘Ivory, Apes and Peacocks: The Queen of Sheba’ (c.1923) refers to gifts that this Ethiopian Queen brought to King Solomon but it is also highlights the painting’s major problem – its white, European-looking sovereign with attendants of colour. An opportunity to discuss with Curator of British Art Jo Meacock and Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire Nelson Cummins how/if Glasgow Museums should display and contextualize such problematic paintings.
Image credit: John Duncan, Ivory, Apes and Peacocks: The Queen of Sheba, c.1923, tempera on canvas. © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection.