Friday 7 January 2011

Legacy of Victorian art collector - Barnsley

HE gave his home town enough art to fill a gallery – and there's a huge pile of receipts to prove he paid for it. During the 1860s Samuel Joshua Cooper travelled around Europe buying art.

Using the fortune he was left by his coal mining entrepreneur father, Joshua snapped up paintings and sculptures in countries around the continent.

Upon his death much of the collection was left to the people of Barnsley. It was put in a gallery named in his honour in the hope Barnsley people would benefit from seeing what he brought back.

The paperwork which related to his purchases had been kept in the South Yorkshire Archive in Sheffield. But now it's been returned to Barnsley, and will feature in an exhibition entitled 'Revealed –The History, The Stories, The Collection'.

A spokesman for Barnsley Council which runs The Cooper Gallery and Barnsley Archives, said: "We are delighted that the documents, letters and archive materials from Cooper's travels are back in Barnsley."

The exhibition in Church Street opens on Saturday January 15 and will run until Friday March 5.

Entry is free.
 

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