Kate Arnold Foster

Director, Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading

Through my role at the Museum of English Rural Life I share an overlap of interest in the traditions of British Folk Art with the curators of Compton Verney. In many ways, the approaches of these two museums complement one another well.

The MERL’s folk art collections have evolved as an almost unintended consequence of acquiring a record of the English countryside, including objects integrated into typologies that illustrate the form and function of rural life and work, while those of Compton Verney reflect the aesthetics, tastes and vision of an inspired collector Andras Kalman.