THE Bowes Museum is continuing to expanding its cultural links with China and the United Arab Emirates.
Following visits to Russia, India, the US and China, the museum’s director Adrian Jenkins revisited the latter country this month to continue the work of partnership building and collaboration, and the sharing of knowledge.
Mr Jenkins has also been invited as one of only two English regional museum directors to present a paper to the four-day International Forum of Museum Directors, to be held in Nanjing, organised by the Louvre in Paris.
Other speakers include the directors of international museums including London’s National Gallery, the head of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the director of the new Louvre in Abu Dhabi.
Mr Jenkins will deliver his paper on the creation of The Bowes Museum, highlighting and explaining the changing tastes in France during the era of the museum founders, John and Josephine Bowes. He will also detail how the founders’ own tastes developed as they moved forward from the purchase of the traditional to modern art for their collections.
“The international treasures that John and Josephine Bowes were collecting were very avant-garde for the time,” he said.
This will be Mr Jenkins’ second trip to China. His visit follows hot on the heels of a scoping visit to the United Arab Emirates by the museum’s exhibitions manager, George Harris, as part of the UK-Gulf Exhibition Programme led by the British Council.
The aim was to explore opportunities for collaboration on the museum’s expanding touring exhibition programme.
A promotional brochure has also been created to showcase the unique exhibitions the museum has to offer encompassing traditional and contemporary work.
As a result of Mr Jenkins’ initial visit to the US, the El Greco to Goya – Spanish Masterpieces from The Bowes Museum exhibition, which received national media acclaim when shown at The Wallace Collection in London in 2017, will tour in America in the near future.
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
