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Description: | Consisting of some twenty oil and watercolour paintings, displayed throughout the University, this collection was created to commemorate the late Professor of Fine Arts, David Talbot Rice. A number of his friends and former pupils presented the University with works of art either from their own collections, or, in the case of practising artists, examples of their own work. This idea was conceived by the late Dr Harold Fletcher, who began the collection with the donation of a picture by John Houston which Professor Rice had once said he wished he could have bought for the University. Other artists featured in this collection include Elizabeth Blackadder, William MacTaggart, Mardi Barrie, Sam Bough and Anne Redpath. David Talbot Rice, CBE, was born in Gloucestershire in 1903. He attended Eton before studying archaeology and anthropology at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1925. While in Oxford, his circle of friends included Evelyn Waugh and Harold Acton as well as his future wife (Elena) Tamara Abelson. The study of the art of Byzantium was one of his chief interests and he travelled extensively in the Near East to pursue this. He was involved in various expeditions to Cyprus, Asia Minor, Iraq and Iran. In 1932, Rice was appointed Lecturer in Byzantine and Near Eastern Art at the newly founded Courtauld Institute in London. Then, in 1934, he was appointed to the Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Art at Edinburgh University which he held almost until his death in 1972. During the Second World War, Rice worked with the Intelligence Directorate of the War Office. After the war he continued to build up the Department of Fine Art at Edinburgh University, where he established an honours degree which combined art history and studio art. He also served on a number of national committees. During his service as Professor he produced a series of scholarly and popular works on the subject of Byzantine and Islamic art. In January 1967, Rice was appointed Vice-Principal of Edinburgh University. He was awarded the MBE in 1943 and the CBE in 1968. Professor David Talbot Rice died at Coln Rogers, Gloucestershire, on 12 March 1972. In 1975 the University’s newly established Talbot Rice Gallery was named in his honour. | Subjects: | Scottish Art; Watercolours; Fine Art; Oil Paintings; Scottish Artists; | Source: | University of Edinburgh | Address: | Old College, South Bridge,
EH8 9YL | Creator: | University of Edinburgh; | Contributor: | Donated by friends and former students of David Talbot Rice. | Identifier: | http://hdl.handle.net/10683/307... | Relation: | http://hdl.handle.net/10683/701 | Go to resource |
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