The College of Optometrists

Our website users across the world may be interested in the following heritage events and temporary exhibitions on optically-related subjects:

 

Conference announcement - The Invention of the Dutch Telescope, its Origin and Impact on Science, Culture and Society 1550-1650

 

Wednesday 24 September 2008-Saturday 27 September 2008

 

Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, The Netherlands (the cradle of the Dutch telescope)

 

Artificial Eyes

 

Opens 16 October 2007 until 16 April 2008

 

What is an artificial eye? Psychological aid, cosmetic prosthesis, functional organ or teaching device? Some of the many different types are featured in this foyer exhibition at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Exhibits have been drawn from the museum's own collections as well as items brought on loan from the British Optical Association Museum at the College of Optometrists and a Victorian plaster model from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.

 

Open from Tuesday-Saturday 10.00-17.00. Closed Mondays and public holidays. Admission free.

 

Hunterian Museum

Royal College of Surgeons of England

35-43 Lincolns Inn Fields

London

WC2A 3PE

 

Web: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums

Email: museums@rcseng.ac.uk

 

 

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The exhibitions listed below are now over but information about their content may still be available from the relevant museum....

 

 

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The Primitives: in reflection

 

Opens 9 November 2007 until 2 December 2007

 

One may wonder how the Flemish Primitives were able to paint with such precision. The contemporary artist David Hockney claims that from 1430 onwards painters used optical techniques: with the aid of a concave mirror a painter would have projected the scene onto a canvas. In the interactive exhibition ‘The Primitives: in reflection’, a project of the Teacher Training College of the University College Antwerp, one may test for oneself whether this is the case. Hockney’s set-up is recreated and the visitor can try for himself to project an image. Using mirrors and lenses the viewer gains an understanding of optics. The experiments are accompanied by an exhibition of antiquarian books dealing with perspective, mirrors and lenses.

 

Open from 1pm to 5pm each day. Admission free.

 

Nottebohm Room

Antwerp City Library (Stadsbibliotheek)

Hendrik Conscienceplein 4

2000 Antwerpen

Belgium

Tel: 03 206 87 10 
Fax: 03 206 87 75

 

 

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How Do You Look? Visual Cognition in Painting and Surgery

 

was held from 19 September 2006 until 22 December 2006

 

This exhibition in the Qvist Gallery at the recently refurbished Hunterian Museum examines how a painter and a surgeon use their eyes in their work, how they coordinate their eye and hand movements and how these translate into actions and creative processes. The exhibition explores the similarities and differences in their work and makes comparisons with how we all use our eyes in everyday tasks and when viewing the world around us.

 

 

Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons

35-43 Lincolns Inn Fields

London

WC2A 3PE

Web: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums

Email: museums@rcseng.ac.uk

 

This exhibition also has its own website:

http://www.howdoyoulook.co.uk/

 

 

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Biomedical Image Awards 2006

 

was held from 13 July 2006

 

Image reproduced courtesy of Wellcome Library

Selected by a team of expert judges from recent acquisitions by the Medical Photographic Library of the Wellcome Library, this exhibition features a wide variety of subjects, mostly invisible to the naked eye.

 

Photographs such as this one by Freya Mowat, a research assistant at the Institute of Ophthalmology, showing the veins of the retina emerging from the optic disc challenge the public perspective that scientists don't have an artistic side. Working every day with microscopes and imaging technology, biologists have been able to capture stunning images through a blend of original and innovative techniques.

 

Despite the obvious visual appeal of the pictures, their primary purpose is investigation. The images are from research projects with the ultimate goal of helping to improve healthcare through new forms of prevention, treatment and vaccination.

 

 

Wellcome Library

210 Euston Road
London, NW1 2BE, UK

 

For details of exhibition venues and opening times or to see the images themselves see the online gallery

  

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Singular Beauty:  Simple Microscopes from the Giordano Collection

 

was held from September 1st 2006 until 30th June 2007

 

Image reproduced courtesy of Mr Raymond V. Giordano

The MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA) will showcase the exquisite beauty of the simple microscope, the portable single-lens instruments first invented in the 17th century and made famous in the 19th century by naturalists such as Charles Darwin.  The exhibition features 125 instruments from the private collection of Raymond V. Giordano: from an example of the early simple microscope as designed by the Dutch naturalist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to the pocket instruments made by the American optical firm of Bausch & Lomb. In addition to documenting the history of the instrument, this exhibition will feature an additional display of images which reveal facets of contemporary microscopy at MIT.

 

Open: Monday-Friday, 10 am to 5 pm; Weekends, Noon to 5 pm.  Closed Mondays.

 

MIT Museum
265 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

United States of America

Web: http://web.mit.edu/museum

Email: museuminfo@mit.edu

 

 

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Alte Liebe Rostet Nicht

 

was held from 29 April 2006 - 31 August 2006 

  

Part of a series of events marking the Napoleonic influence on substantial parts of Central Germany two hundred years ago, our colleagues at the Optisches Museum in Jena are holding a major exhibition of objects and prints from that elegant era. Expect lots of scissor spectacles and caricatures of bounding dandies flourishing their visual aids in an extravagant manner.

 

Optisches Museum der Ernst Abbe Stiftung Jena

Carl Zeiss Platz 12

D-07743 Jena

Germany

Email: info@optischesmuseum.de