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| Sainsbury Research Unit | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sainsbury Research Unit |
| Established | 1980s |
| Location | University of East Anglia, Norwich |
| Type | Research centre |
| Director | (various) |
Sainsbury Research Unit is a research centre for the study of medieval and later architecture and decorative arts based at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. The unit focuses on the visual and material culture of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas through museum-based study, conservation, curatorial practice and academic publication. It serves as a hub connecting scholars, curators and conservators from institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Tate Gallery.
The unit was founded in the 1980s with support from benefactors associated with the Sainsbury family and developed links with the University of East Anglia, the City of Norwich School and regional collections like the Norwich Castle Museum. Early directors collaborated with curators from the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodleian Library, the British Library, and scholars from the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Over subsequent decades the unit worked with exhibition teams from the National Gallery, the British Council, the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts to organise loans, catalogues and symposia. Visiting fellows have included researchers affiliated with the Getty Research Institute, the Kress Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust and the Wellcome Trust.
The unit’s mission emphasizes scholarship in material culture and museum practice, aligning with partners such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of London. Objectives include developing collections-based research with curators from the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the UCL Museums & Collections and the Horniman Museum, advancing conservation science with teams at the National Trust, the Historic England laboratory, and training postgraduate scholars for roles at institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Louvre Museum and the Hermitage Museum.
Research spans medieval textiles, Renaissance painting, Islamic ceramics, East Asian lacquer, sub-Saharan metalwork and Indigenous American objects, connecting specialists from the Courtauld Institute of Art, the SOAS University of London, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow and the University of Manchester. Collections-based projects have drawn on holdings from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the Horniman Museum, the Manchester Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and the National Museums Liverpool. The unit supports study of objects linked to figures and movements such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Mariano Fortuny, William Morris, Christopher Dresser, Egon Schiele and Pablo Picasso, and themes tied to exhibitions like the Great Exhibition, the Festival of Britain and the World's Columbian Exposition.
The unit runs postgraduate seminars, curatorial placements and conservation internships in cooperation with the Institute of Archaeology, the British School at Rome, the British Institute at Ankara, the Courtauld Institute, the Yale Center for British Art, the Princeton University Art Museum and the Columbia University art-history departments. Activities include collaborative exhibitions with the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, the Hayward Gallery and touring projects with the Imperial War Museum and the Museum of London Docklands. The unit organises conferences and lecture series featuring speakers from the Getty Conservation Institute, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée du Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Museo Nacional del Prado.
Housed within the University of East Anglia campus, the unit accesses seminar rooms, conservation studios and specialist libraries linked to the Norwich Millennium Library, the British Library, the National Art Library and the Research Institute). Technical resources include microscopy and imaging equipment comparable to facilities at the Courtauld Institute of Art conservation department, spectroscopy resources used by the National Gallery conservation scientists, and digital archives interoperable with the Digital Public Library of America and the Europeana portal. The unit maintains teaching collections and object-handling spaces for partnerships with the Royal Museums Greenwich, the Science Museum Group and regional galleries such as the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
The unit publishes monographs, exhibition catalogues and articles in collaboration with presses and journals associated with the Paul Holberton Publishing, the Yale University Press, the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press, the Journal of the History of Collections, the Burlington Magazine, and the Art Bulletin. Outputs include catalogues co-published with the Victoria and Albert Museum, conservation reports shared with the Getty Conservation Institute, and collaborative digital projects hosted with the European Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Collaborative partners have included the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Tate, the National Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum, the Museum of London, the Natural History Museum, the National Trust, the Royal Collection Trust, the Getty Research Institute, the Wellcome Trust, the Leverhulme Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, the European Research Council, and universities including the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the UCL, the University of York, the University of Leeds, the University of Birmingham, the University of Southampton and the Durham University.
Category:Research institutes in England