10 August 2010
Days of celebration to mark 150th anniversary of D'Arcy Thompson
The University of Dundee will next month host three days of events as part of the ongoing celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of D’Arcy Thompson’s birth.
Professor Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson was born in Edinburgh in 1860, and went on to become a renowned and influential biologist, mathematician and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of life sciences at Dundee, where a year-long commemoration of his life and work is taking place.
The second half of the programme of celebrations begins with a series of talks and exhibitions taking place from Thursday, September 2nd until Saturday 4th.
Thompson was the first Professor of Biology at University College Dundee, now the University of Dundee, and also spent many years working at the University of St Andrews.
One of the events will be held at St Andrews, and the celebrations are being organised by Museum Services and the College of Life Sciences at Dundee, and the University of St Andrews’ Museum Collections and School of Biology. Funding comes from the Royal Society's Local Heroes programme.
Matthew Jarron, Curator of Museum Services at Dundee, said he hoped as many people as possible would attend the events and help celebrate the genius of D’Arcy Thompson.
'Richard Dawkins recently described D’Arcy Thompson as ‘surely one of the most erudite scientists ever’, and his pioneering work is recognised across the scientific community,' he said.
'But what’s wonderful about D’Arcy is that he has inspired people in other areas too - art, design, architecture and engineering among others. It’s these more unusual connections that we’re focussing on in this weekend of talks and exhibitions. We hope a lot of people will want to come along to find out more.'
Scheduled events begin on Thursday 2nd with ‘Splashing Around: Themes from D'Arcy Thompson in the Visual Arts’, a free public lecture given by Professor Martin Kemp from the University of Oxford. Appropriately enough, the event takes place in the D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre at 5.30pm
This lecture by the internationally renowned art historian will sample the diversity of Thompsonesque motifs that run through art, architecture and engineering from the 1930s to the present day. Those touched range from Jackson Pollock to engineer Cecil Balmond of Ove Arup.
This will be followed by the opening of a new exhibition of artistic responses to Thompson, ‘Sketching the Universe’, in the University’s Lamb Gallery. From the likes of Henry Moore, Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi to today’s students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, the exhibition covers a wide range of media and styles, all linked by D’Arcy’s writings and collections.
Accompanying this will be an exhibition of prints by the celebrated abstract artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham which reveal the influence of D’Arcy Thompson’s classic book ‘On Growth & Form’ on her work. The material is on loan from the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust, and will be on display in the Tower Foyer Gallery.
On Friday, September 3rd, a ‘town & gown’ event will be held at the University of St Andrews, featuring a variety of speakers including the Emeritus Professor of Natural History, Peter Slater.
This begins at 2pm in Lecture Theatre D, Bute Building and will be followed by an early evening buffet supper in the Bell Pettigrew Museum with harp music. The full programme is available at www.darcythompson.org
Finally, on Saturday, September 4th, the University of Dundee will be hosting a one-day conference exploring the contemporary legacy of D’Arcy’s work, in fields as diverse as biology, mathematics, art, anthropology, engineering, geography and ecology.
Creative Writing tutor Jim Stewart will also be giving a performance by of his new poem about Thompson at the conference, and a reception will be held in the D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum. Attendance at the event is free but booking is essential.
A full programme of events will be issued shortly.
More information is available by contacting Matthew Jarron on museum@dundee.ac.uk or 01382 384310.
To keep up with events as they are added to the schedule, admirers can become ‘friends’ with the influential polymath on Facebook, which organisers of the celebrations have signed Thompson up to, some 62 years after his death.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277 |
