The Robert Cripps Gallery
The College opened the new Robert Cripps Gallery at Magdalene College in November 2021 and is delighted with this new gallery space for visiting exhibitions and for occasionally displaying parts of the College art collection to the wider community.
The Gallery has been named in honour of Mr Robert Cripps AM, a passionate art collector, generous supporter and Honorary Fellow of the College since 2005. The Robert Cripps Gallery forms a key part of the award-winning New Library, a purpose-built space for Magdalene students and staff to meet, work, relax and find inspiration.
Current Exhibition
Nigel Hall RA
Line, Edge, Shadow: drawings and sculpture
9 October – 18 December 2024
Nigel Hall RA is one of Britain’s most distinguished sculptors. His outside works, principally made of corten steel, painted steel or bronze, are concerned with three-dimensional space, mass and line. His abstract and geometric sculptures give as much prominence to voids and shadows as to the solidity of material and each work changes with light and viewpoint reflecting the landscapes that inspired them.
Nigel was born in Bristol and raised in the Gloucestershire countryside, studied at the West of England College of Art and the Royal College of Art. A Harkness Fellowship took him to California in 1967 for two years. From 1971 to 1981, he lectured at the Royal College of Art and Chelsea College of Art and Design. His awards include the Pollock-Krasner Award (1995), the Jack Goldhill Sculpture Prize (2002), and he was elected a Royal Academician (2003) and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts, London (2017). Nigel has exhibited extensively, with his first European solo show in 1967 and over 100 solo and 300 group exhibitions globally.
On his upcoming Magdalene show, he says:
I was delighted to be offered an exhibition at the beautiful Robert Cripps Gallery at Magdalene College, Cambridge as it seems the perfect venue for an exhibition of my drawings and small sculptures. It has a long vista for experiencing larger works on paper and an intimacy conducive to exploring smaller pieces.
As well as drawings, there are three fine vitrines which will display small scale sculptures, both maquettes as well as finished works and also notebooks.
I find there is a symbiotic relationship between two and three dimensional works in which neither take precedence over the other. Drawing has played a constant and vital part in my work and not solely as preliminary studies for sculpture. It has allowed for related explorations freed from the tyranny of gravity to which sculpture is inextricably chained.
Certain views, trees and objects might draw me to them and then I reciprocate by drawing them in return. Drawing for me can be seeing, thinking, exploring, connecting and distilling. You need to know something about the subject in order to draw it and once drawn, it’s never forgotten.
The non-referential or ‘finished’ drawings shown in the Gallery, are complete works with the same status as my sculpture and mostly use the language of geometry as their mode of expression. In these works the subject is the form and the form is the subject.
Opening Times
9 October – 18 December 2024
Open: 14:00 - 16:00, Monday - Saturday
Closed: Sunday
Information for Visitors
- to arrange access to the exhibition please call into the Porters’ Lodge on Magdalene Street
- entrance will be to the Gallery only
- visitors are requested not to enter other parts of the New Library
Upcoming Exhibition
Ebu Estandar
Dreams of the Soul
17 January – 1 March 2025
Many people ask me why I am always so happy and optimistic .I think it is because of the life I’ve lived. Growing up in the mountain jungle of Namasia, Taiwan, steeped in tradition, surrounded by nature and full of magic and mystery. My childhood way of life filled my soul with ideas and ideals. Today I live a more modern existence. The vivid experiences that moulded me so long ago have faded to memories, stored away in a corner of my mind, there but not there, like dreams. They surface every now and again, coming to me like dreams in a mix of light and sound, words and pictures, poetry and paintings. Like pieces of a puzzle I put them back together to create my paintings. - Ebu Estandar
Ebu Estandar comes from an aboriginal village in the mountains of Taiwan called Namasia. She is one of eleven children and spent most of her childhood secluded in the village where she was born. She left the village as a teenager to go to school in the city of Tainan. It wasn’t until her early twenties that she discovered her true passion for painting. She hasn’t looked back since, continuously putting on canvas her life experiences, feelings, memories and endless inspirations. As an adult she has spent many years living in Mexico and the UK, where she has continued to paint, influenced by her ever changing surroundings. Ebu mostly paints oil on canvas, but she has also turned her hand to many different expressions of art. She has held exhibitions in Taiwan, Mexico and the UK. Each one has been different and unique to Ebu’s life. She is a member of the Cambridge arts studio and the organisation of female Taiwanese artists. You can see more of her paintings on her website: www.ebuart.com
Past Exhibitions
George Mallory: Magdalene to the Mountain
A homage to the life and legacy of George Mallory (1905). Beginning with his Magdalene days, his academic, athletic, and social pursuits. Delving into his WWI experiences, his Everest expeditions and American lecture tour, culminating in a poignant commemoration of Mallory and Irvine's tragic end on...
The Perspective of the Medieval Scribe
Exhibition of Medieval Manuscripts from the libraries of Magdalene College. A unique double exhibition revealing medieval perspectives on the physical world, on other worlds, and on the creative potential of image and word with the natural world, with music and with science.
The Personality and Legacy of Fox (1923-2023)
Sir Cyril Fred Fox (1882-1967) was one of the most distinguished archaeologists to have graduated from Magdalene. 2023 is the centenary of his celebrated book The Archaeology of the Cambridge Regio. The exhibition draws Fox'e publications and other materials, to look at Fox’s personality and the...
The world according to Jiří Kolář
Jiří Kolář (1914-2002) was a prolific Czech artist across media: a poet, writer, and translator who expanded the boundaries of modern art by deconstructing the printed image and word. In re-assembling and constructing images in collage, he created often absurd commentaries on modern life and the...
Duncan Robinson In Memoriam
Duncan Robinson CBE (1943 - 2022) was a leading authority on British art from the eighteenth century onwards. He was also a well-loved Master of Magdalene College, 2002 – 2012, a highly respected teacher and a witty, engaging and very warm man. This exhibition reflects aspects of his remarkably full...
Cross-Connections: Paintings by Ruth Rix
A selection of work by Ruth Rix from sixty years of painting, shown alongside prints by her mother Helga Michie, a Kindertransport refugee from Vienna.
Will Carter - Man of Letters
An important retrospective featuring the wide-ranging portfolio of one of Cambridge’s most respected and much-loved resident artists, including many examples of his calligraphy, letter carving, printing, and typefaces.
From Southwold to Alice Springs
From Southwold to Alice Springs: Selected works from the Collection of Robert Cripps, showcased a small snapshot of the paintings, drawings and engravings acquired over many years by a remarkable collector, reflecting both his deep roots in the countryside and coast of East Anglia and his...
Fragile Planet - Watercolour Journeys into Wild Places
Fragile Planet was a major exhibition of watercolours by Cornwall’s world-renowned wilderness artist, Tony Foster. Fragile Planet - Watercolour Journeys into Wild Places, highlights the precariousness of the world’s wildernesses and endangered environments, many of which Tony visited and painted...
Everest 1921 - A Reconnaissance
Pioneering works in the history of photography! With the kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), this exhibition showcased a selection of prints of the approaches to Mount Everest, taken in 1921 and reconstructed from newly digitised fragile silver nitrate negatives.