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The Witt Library in crisis
World of Museums
313 PII:S0260-4779(02)00002-X
The Witt Library in Crisis Notwithstanding the international prominence of the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, the problems of the recent curtailing of space in its Witt Library in Somerset House, coupled with a serious loss of funding, need to be addressed as a matter or urgency. While any other institution of its kind would by necessity be in need of expansion in order to accommodate the explosion of photographic and illustrative material, the reverse is true of what still ranks as the largest photographic library in the world. The Italian Section and part of the British Section, the most active areas of the Library, have recently been displaced and their floor space allocation much reduced in order to make room for an IT centre for the undergraduate students of the Courtauld Institute. Concurrently, the structural work undertaken to house this centre has devoured all the grant obtained for the project and more money has now to be found to equip it with the necessary computers. So tightly is the shelving of the Italian Section squeezed together, at the time of writing, that there is hardly any other space available in which to rest the boxes other than on the floor, and, if two people are working in the same area, they create serious difficulties for each other. The upper shelves are precariously high, and, even if the staff has been able to reduce the number of shelves from eight to seven, this is, as pointed out by Dr. John Sunderland, the Witt Librarian, not much of an improvement. In fairness it must be said that a limited amount of space has been made available on the floor above to accommodate the British Section, but it does not by any means make up for the loss of space and daylight in the basement area. The Witt Librarian was quite right to decline to put some boxes into storage off-site to leave more room for those in the open stacks, as originally suggested by Professor Eric Fernie, the Director of the Courtauld Institute, of which the Witt Library is only one department. The Director’s powers in this respect are far-reaching because the Institute has no trustees, only an Advisory Board which meets once a term. The Witt Library was founded by Robert and Mary Witt who had both studied the art of the Italian Renaissance as part of their history degrees at Oxford in the 1890s, and had then, independently of each other, started to collect illustrative documentation of works of art. Subsequently they married and by 1925 their combined Library contained over 13,000 artists’ names and more than 300,000 mounted reproductions, an outstanding private archive supported by a successful law practice. Since then the number of artists has risen to over 75,000 and the number of mounts to 1.8 million and rising. Gone are the days of Lady Witt and her volunteers, who have been replaced by a salaried staff now much diminished since its heyday in the late 1980s when the Witt Library employed six full-time staff and three part-timers. Drastic cuts in funding had by 1998 reduced this to 70% of that total. Most of the funding of the Courtauld Institute of Art comes from the Higher Education Funding Council of England, an autonomous governmental agency responsible to the Department of Education, but specialist photographic
314
World of Museums
libraries do not feature as such in the formula which would make them eligible for grants from this body, and consequently they have to be supported each and every year by special category funding from the Council, funding which has unfortunately not been forthcoming this year (2001/02). Fundraising for the Witt Library began in 1993, and the sum raised yields approximately £8,000 in income per annum, but, since this is paid into the Courtauld Institute general account, it is not impossible that circumstances could arise which might lead to it being eventually amalgamated into one single pot. In retrospect it is a misfortune that Sir Robert Witt allowed himself to be persuaded to bequeath unconditionally his and his wife’s lifework to the newly created Courtauld Institute instead of the National Gallery of London which had been his original intention. Today this is the immediate cause of its decline since within the Courtauld Institute it has come to represent a largely irrelevant tool in modern undergraduate teaching and study of art history. The honourable traditions of connoisseurship, which, perhaps more than in any other country, continue to be vibrant here in the United Kingdom, have been increasingly marginalized in the academic curriculum. Nobody should suggest that the study of the history of art within its wider cultural, political, religious and economic context should be unduly constricted – indeed we would all be immeasurable poorer for it – but, in the context of this article, it has to be asked whether the Witt Library, based as it is on connoisseurship and its essential values, should be condemned to the role of a poor relation tolerated as an integral part of the Courtauld Institute, or whether it would not be preferable for it to become an independent institution in its own right. The old adage that no man is accepted as a prophet in his own country applies also to the Witt Library which from its early days has been more famous abroad than in England. Years before the Courtauld Institute was founded, Wilhelm von Bode, Adolfo Venturi and Fritz Saxl all wrote appreciatively in continental art journals about the Witt Library. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the Witt Library remains one of the Courtauld Institute’s most important interfaces with the international art historical community, with art museum curators and with the scholarly members of the art trade. The commercial benefits enjoyed by the latter must be considerable, as they must be to The Art Loss Register, insurance companies and, not least, the Italian judiciary. Not surprisingly, it has also been suggested that the Witt Library should become the photographic Library of last resort, in the European Union, for due diligence searching. However budgetary and staff shortages have already reduced the systematic accessioning of material from auction catalogues to a trickle. If the working conditions for users of the Library continue to be as bad as they are today (Autumn 2001), they will continue to bring the Courtauld Institute’s reputation into disrepute and people will eventually stop using the Witt Library altogether. It will also discourage further donations to the Library and indeed to the Institute itself. Moves are afoot, however, to give the Courtauld Institute independent college status within the University of London (at present it has no separate legal identity), dependant upon the raising of a sufficient endowment through the munificence of various trusts. As most of the present teaching within the Courtauld Institute does not involve the Witt Library, now is the time for an informed debate on the future of the Will Library, now is the time for an informed debate on the future of the
World of Museums
315
Witt Library. The legal problems over copyright laws which were raised when it was planned to digitalize this rich archive of material must be clarified and no effort should be spared to solve them. In conclusion all avenues should be explored for this great hundred-year-old library to be imbued with renewed energy instead of being condemned to eke out a shadowy and increasingly precarious existence. Michael Voggenauer
313 PII:S0260-4779(02)00002-X
The Witt Library in Crisis Notwithstanding the international prominence of the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, the problems of the recent curtailing of space in its Witt Library in Somerset House, coupled with a serious loss of funding, need to be addressed as a matter or urgency. While any other institution of its kind would by necessity be in need of expansion in order to accommodate the explosion of photographic and illustrative material, the reverse is true of what still ranks as the largest photographic library in the world. The Italian Section and part of the British Section, the most active areas of the Library, have recently been displaced and their floor space allocation much reduced in order to make room for an IT centre for the undergraduate students of the Courtauld Institute. Concurrently, the structural work undertaken to house this centre has devoured all the grant obtained for the project and more money has now to be found to equip it with the necessary computers. So tightly is the shelving of the Italian Section squeezed together, at the time of writing, that there is hardly any other space available in which to rest the boxes other than on the floor, and, if two people are working in the same area, they create serious difficulties for each other. The upper shelves are precariously high, and, even if the staff has been able to reduce the number of shelves from eight to seven, this is, as pointed out by Dr. John Sunderland, the Witt Librarian, not much of an improvement. In fairness it must be said that a limited amount of space has been made available on the floor above to accommodate the British Section, but it does not by any means make up for the loss of space and daylight in the basement area. The Witt Librarian was quite right to decline to put some boxes into storage off-site to leave more room for those in the open stacks, as originally suggested by Professor Eric Fernie, the Director of the Courtauld Institute, of which the Witt Library is only one department. The Director’s powers in this respect are far-reaching because the Institute has no trustees, only an Advisory Board which meets once a term. The Witt Library was founded by Robert and Mary Witt who had both studied the art of the Italian Renaissance as part of their history degrees at Oxford in the 1890s, and had then, independently of each other, started to collect illustrative documentation of works of art. Subsequently they married and by 1925 their combined Library contained over 13,000 artists’ names and more than 300,000 mounted reproductions, an outstanding private archive supported by a successful law practice. Since then the number of artists has risen to over 75,000 and the number of mounts to 1.8 million and rising. Gone are the days of Lady Witt and her volunteers, who have been replaced by a salaried staff now much diminished since its heyday in the late 1980s when the Witt Library employed six full-time staff and three part-timers. Drastic cuts in funding had by 1998 reduced this to 70% of that total. Most of the funding of the Courtauld Institute of Art comes from the Higher Education Funding Council of England, an autonomous governmental agency responsible to the Department of Education, but specialist photographic
314
World of Museums
libraries do not feature as such in the formula which would make them eligible for grants from this body, and consequently they have to be supported each and every year by special category funding from the Council, funding which has unfortunately not been forthcoming this year (2001/02). Fundraising for the Witt Library began in 1993, and the sum raised yields approximately £8,000 in income per annum, but, since this is paid into the Courtauld Institute general account, it is not impossible that circumstances could arise which might lead to it being eventually amalgamated into one single pot. In retrospect it is a misfortune that Sir Robert Witt allowed himself to be persuaded to bequeath unconditionally his and his wife’s lifework to the newly created Courtauld Institute instead of the National Gallery of London which had been his original intention. Today this is the immediate cause of its decline since within the Courtauld Institute it has come to represent a largely irrelevant tool in modern undergraduate teaching and study of art history. The honourable traditions of connoisseurship, which, perhaps more than in any other country, continue to be vibrant here in the United Kingdom, have been increasingly marginalized in the academic curriculum. Nobody should suggest that the study of the history of art within its wider cultural, political, religious and economic context should be unduly constricted – indeed we would all be immeasurable poorer for it – but, in the context of this article, it has to be asked whether the Witt Library, based as it is on connoisseurship and its essential values, should be condemned to the role of a poor relation tolerated as an integral part of the Courtauld Institute, or whether it would not be preferable for it to become an independent institution in its own right. The old adage that no man is accepted as a prophet in his own country applies also to the Witt Library which from its early days has been more famous abroad than in England. Years before the Courtauld Institute was founded, Wilhelm von Bode, Adolfo Venturi and Fritz Saxl all wrote appreciatively in continental art journals about the Witt Library. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the Witt Library remains one of the Courtauld Institute’s most important interfaces with the international art historical community, with art museum curators and with the scholarly members of the art trade. The commercial benefits enjoyed by the latter must be considerable, as they must be to The Art Loss Register, insurance companies and, not least, the Italian judiciary. Not surprisingly, it has also been suggested that the Witt Library should become the photographic Library of last resort, in the European Union, for due diligence searching. However budgetary and staff shortages have already reduced the systematic accessioning of material from auction catalogues to a trickle. If the working conditions for users of the Library continue to be as bad as they are today (Autumn 2001), they will continue to bring the Courtauld Institute’s reputation into disrepute and people will eventually stop using the Witt Library altogether. It will also discourage further donations to the Library and indeed to the Institute itself. Moves are afoot, however, to give the Courtauld Institute independent college status within the University of London (at present it has no separate legal identity), dependant upon the raising of a sufficient endowment through the munificence of various trusts. As most of the present teaching within the Courtauld Institute does not involve the Witt Library, now is the time for an informed debate on the future of the Will Library, now is the time for an informed debate on the future of the
World of Museums
315
Witt Library. The legal problems over copyright laws which were raised when it was planned to digitalize this rich archive of material must be clarified and no effort should be spared to solve them. In conclusion all avenues should be explored for this great hundred-year-old library to be imbued with renewed energy instead of being condemned to eke out a shadowy and increasingly precarious existence. Michael Voggenauer