An annual programme of events and activities to rediscover the legacy of John Ruskin in Sheffield, from 2014 - 2019, produced by the Guild of St George.
Welcome to the website of Ruskin in Sheffield, a programme of creative events and activities across the city inspired by the Ruskin Collection at the Millennium Gallery, which ran from 2014 to 2019, John Ruskin’s bicentenary year.
The programme has now ended, and we’d like to thank everyone who has taken part and helped to revitalise the heritage and legacy of John Ruskin in Sheffield for today.
In the adventurous spirit of John Ruskin, Ruskin in Sheffield has worked with Museums Sheffield, local communities, Guild Companions, cultural organisations, artists, environmentalists, historians, activists and scholars to create Pop-Up Museums, performances, festivals and new displays in the Ruskin Collection.
Since 2014, through these activities, over 24,000 people have engaged with their local Ruskin heritage, craftsmanship, drawing, good livelihoods, utopian thinking, nature, social justice and their local community.
In 2020, the Guild of St George is evaluating the programme in order to share the impact and practice of engaging people with Ruskin’s ideas in ways that make a difference today, in Sheffield and around the UK.
A book and a short film will each capture different aspects of this legacy.
The Guild’s work in Sheffield continues through closely working with Museums Sheffield to care for and engage people with the Ruskin Collection. We will also continue to develop our collaboration with Heeley Trust to explore ways of increasing wellbeing in the local neighbourhood, using Ruskin’s ideas, from the Guild’s base at Meersbrook Hall.
For further information, please contact Ruth Nutter, Creative Producer, Guild of St George, via ruskininsheffield@gmail.com or 07951 578208.
For details of the Guild of St George’s activities around the UK and internationally, please visit www.guildofstgeorge.org.uk.
RUSKIN
in SHEFFIELD
working with
John Ruskin was a renowned thinker, writer, artist and social reformer. He founded the Guild of St George in 1871 to help make the world a better place to live in.
Ruskin’s main connection with Sheffield is the Ruskin Collection at the Millennium Gallery, which is owned and supported by the Guild of St George and cared for and displayed by Museums Sheffield. In 1875, Ruskin chose Walkley as the neighbourhood for St George’s Museum to house a remarkable collection of paintings, drawings, architectural cases, books and minerals. Its purpose was to educate and inspire the metal-workers of Sheffield. From 1890 - 1953, the collection was displayed at the Ruskin Museum at Meersbrook Park, and then at the Ruskin Gallery on Norfolk Street throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Ruskin also purchased St George’s Farm in Totley in the late 1800s to set up a utopian communal land project for the workers of Sheffield.
We are grateful for a number of funding awards that made Ruskin in Sheffield possible:
National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Being Human Festival of Humanities, Catalyst Festival of Creativity (Sheffield Hallam University), Sheffield Year of Making, University of Sheffield, Church Burgesses Educational Foundation, Sheffield Grammar School Exhibition Foundation, and Mount Pleasant Educational Foundation.