I spend a fair amount of time at New Hall because that is the college Jean is affiliated with (though in what formal manner, I cannot say, as these distinctions are of no interest to me). I’m very fond of the place because portions of it are very modern in the same manner as Evergreen: lots of brutal concrete walls.
Another feature it shares with my alma mater is the art all over the place, generally ignored by passerby. In the case of New Hall, that would be the second largest collection of women’s art in the world.
The fact that such a thing just sits, benignly and without seeking attention, down yonder road, is a quintessentially Cambridge presentation. This city is full of surprises and hidden history that could take a lifetime to discover – a fact that is always shocking, since the place feels so sleepy and boring on an average day, when the struggle is just to acquire a pint of milk without running over a tourist.
Imagine my surprise then to read an article in the Guardian that takes as a fundamental premise the naive question what’s the point of a museum of art by women? Hmm. Backlash, anyone?
It is impossible to evaluate the worth of this collection based on the last decade of an inflated art market that does not, even at that level, equally reward all artists and genres. To phrase it differently: not everyone likes Tracy Emin.
Beyond that, the history of New Hall itself is given only a cursory glance. It is simply an appalling intellectual error to ignore the fact that Cambridge was the last university in the nation to refuse to grant women degrees – even when they scored higher than male students.
The struggle for equality in education here is not ancient history. There are senior professors who still remember extreme discrimination, and many of the junior members have had to deal with overt prejudice.
How many are rumored to have slept their way into their employment contracts? How many terrifically bright women are turned away by the insular, old-boys-club attitudes here?
There is simply no reason to debate the merits of a privately funded specialty art collection in this town. Other colleges preserve the cabinets Pepys kept his journals in, or the desk Whewell used when scribbling notes.
This place has a museum full of fossils, another full of zoology specimens. Each is just as worthy as the other.