Conserving, Digitising and Documenting John Ruskin's Lecture Diagrams

National Manuscripts Conservation Trust

Project Lead: Professor Sandra Kemp

‘His lectures testify to the brightness and originality of his mind [...]. No one can appreciate their effect, unless he was so fortunate as to hear them’

G.W. Kitchin, Ruskin in Oxford (London: John Murray, 1904)

Dating from 1853 to 1885, these large-scale visual aids were created by Ruskin and his associates to illustrate Ruskin’s public lectures. Some of the diagrams have not been seen since Ruskin himself used them on stage.

The project will enable us to conserve, digitise, document and research a number of the Lecture Diagrams in The Ruskin Whitehouse Collection. These will be displayed in 'School of Ruskin', the first ever exhibition featuring Ruskin's Lecture Diagrams. This exhibition is part of a ground-breaking collaborative project in partnership with The Royal Society placing the history and legacy of lecture diagrams in the arts in the wider tradition established in the sciences.

Image: Ruskin’s Lecture Diagrams (Photo: Fusion Design)