Unlocking the British School at Rome’s fine arts archive

A new digital exhibition illuminating the undiscovered work and stories of influential Twentieth Century artists has been launched. As part of The University of Manchester's Collaboration Labs programme, an interdisciplinary team of Postgraduate Researchers have curated an interactive, digital exhibition to showcase an unexplored Fine Arts archive at the British School at Rome, a prestigious research academy supporting the Arts, Humanities and Architecture. Over the last 120 years, painters, sculptors, engravers and printmakers, architects, archaeologists and scholars have carried out residencies at the British School at Rome. Until now, the wealth of archival material produced by the artists has remained understudied and inaccessible to the wider public. Working together with the British School at Rome, Ms Ksenia Litvinenko (The University of Manchester), Dr Nia Davies (University of Salford) and Dr Peter Buckles (University of Liverpool) have drawn on innovative research, digital and creative writing methods to bring the materials and their history to light. "'The specificity of the archive prompted us to expand our knowledge and research skills in art history, especially in the context of the early 20th century. As a result, the platform explores a range of artistic mediums such as mural painting, engraving, sculpture and architecture, and how they were practised at that time.