Reframing The Narrative
This talk explores the rehanging of the Glassford portrait in Kelvingrove and how it may shape approaches to exploring histories and legacies of enslavement in Glasgow Museums moving forward.
About Reframing The Narrative
| 17th October 2025 | |
| Midday | |
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Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Argyle Street, Glasgow West End G3 8AG |
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| This is a free event | |
| Event organiser/part of Glasgow Museums | |
| Visit the event website here | |
In September this year, Glasgow Museums redisplayed the Glassford Family Portrait in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Depicting a child enslaved by John Glassford and Glassford and his family.
Glassford was one of Glasgow’s ‘tobacco lords’, merchants in the 1700s who made fortunes trading in tobacco a crop dependent on the exploitation of enslaved people working on American and Caribbean plantations. The painting hung for a long time in the People's Palace.
Long rumoured to be painted out of the portrait, work conducted by Glasgow Museum’s conservation team in 2007 found the enslaved child was obscured by dirt and never painted out. However, little is known about who the enslaved child was, his name and his life. This raises questions around whose histories are recorded and preserved and how power shapes this.
This short talk by Nelson Cummins, Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire will explore the rehanging of the Glassford portrait in Kelvingrove and how it may shape approaches to exploring histories and legacies of enslavement in Glasgow Museums moving forward.
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