In Birmingham for a meeting of the Historycal Roots team, we noticed that there was a Samuel Coleridge-Taylor exhibition listed in the city’s Black History Month literature. Meeting over, we dashed to Birmingham University’s leafy Edgbaston campus and made our way to the main library which was where the exhibition was supposed to be. On arrival we were confidently pointed by a librarian in the direction of a display which was …. about Lenin.
Returning to the main desk, a second librarian made several phone calls, checked his computer several times, went for a consultation and finally established that the exhibition was actually at the Fine Arts Institute on the other side of the campus.
Given our interest in ‘hidden history’ we couldn’t help but note the irony.
The Fine Arts Institute did indeed have two display cabinets that contained original scores and programmes (including one signed by both SCT himself and Edward Elgar). It was interesting but, in truth, a little underwhelming. Nor was it very easy to take any decent photos because of the light reflecting off the display cabinets:
Fortunately the Institute had a pretty impressive collection of paintings and we had a good look round, although I admit it did degenerate into a game of ‘spot any representation of Black people’. There were five or six figures depicted, nicely rendered but very much in peripheral roles in the scenes. Here is an example:
The Coleridge-Taylor exhibition was a bit of a missed opportunity but, excuse our cynicism, no doubt someone was able to tick a box to show they had contributed to Black History Month.