Development News
Leading Portuguese artist’s
work donated to QMU
A
COLLECTION OF ART work by a leading Portuguese
artist is to be displayed at QMU.
Susana Stevens, the daughter of Bartolomeu Cid dos
Santos, Portugal’s leading 20th century artist, kindly donated a
selection of her late father’s work to the University.
Born in 1931, Dos Santos was brought up in Lisbon and studied
at the city's Escola de Belas-Artes. However, he was keen to
escape what he referred to as the ‘oppressive cultural desert that
was then-fascist Portugal’, and moved to London in the 1950s to
further his artistic exploration at the Slade School of Fine Art, part
of University College London.
Dakota Hotels offers new
support package for hospitality
students
Q
MU HAS JOINED forces with award-winning Dakota
Hotels to provide students with outstanding employ-
ability and financial support.
The boutique hotel group is offering annual internships and financial
sponsorship to QMU’s hospitality and tourism degree students.
This partnership development makes an important contribution to
QMU’s links with industry and helps to strengthen its already robust
employability strategy.
QMU’s hospitality division has been working with Dakota Hotels for
several years. The University awarded Ken McCulloch, the group’s
founder and chairman, with an honorary doctorate in 2007. Dakota
Hotels has also provided undergraduate internships to several
hospitality and tourism students and, more recently, has welcomed
two QMU graduates onto its Graduate Development Programme.
The new awards were launched at this year’s summer graduation
ceremony. The Dakota Achievement Sponsorship was presented
to Adam Roe, the new President of QMU’s Students’ Union, who
won the award for his innovative dissertation which focused on
edible insects. Dakota will also make an award to a student on the
MSc International Management & Leadership and MBA Hospitality
students for their industry-based Community and Business Impact
Project.
Independent hotelier, Ken McCulloch, said: “Dakota has been
delighted to support and work alongside QMU. We share mutual
respect and an understanding that we must provide the opportunity
for ambitious individuals who have committed to learning the
foundations of hospitality, to enter our industry with the strongest
possible platform for them to achieve great success. Our industry
needs enthusiastic, talented graduates who have a genuine passion
for delivering service, and this sponsorship seeks to award their
commitment thus far.”
Bernie Quinn, Senior Lecturer in Hospitality and Tourism at
QMU, concluded: “This is another exciting development in the
relationship between QMU and Dakota Hotels. Our students are
already benefitting greatly from the opportunities provided by Dakota
and these prizes provide both great incentive and rewards which
recognise the exceptional endeavours of our graduating students.” ❒
28
QMYOU / Development News
The institution allowed him to flourish and he went on to teach
at the Slade between 1961 and 1996. His work focused primarily
on printmaking where he employed a combination of etching and
aquatint.
He was eventually elected a fellow of University College London
and in 1996 emeritus professor in fine art of the University of
London. A man of great charm, he was revered as a teacher and
his MA course at the Slade attracted an international body of
students. He held a number of visiting professorships abroad, and
was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers
in 1990.
Examples of Dos Santos’ work can be found all over the world
including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert, Cambridge,
the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the Museum of Modern Art,
New York and the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. His greatest
work is the etched limestone panels he created for the murals in
the atrium of the Lisbon underground station serving Portugal's
National Library. The central section, covering 1,000 sq m, depicts
an immense library containing the country's finest literature.
Fourteen limited edition etchings by Dos Santos will be displayed,
on a rotational basis, outside The Halle Lecture Theatre at QMU.
Dos Santos’ daughter, Susana, is delighted that her father’s work
will be on display at QMU where her daughter Tabitha is a media
student. She said: “My father dedicated his life to art and the
education of others with his work focusing on the concepts of
freedom and travel, encompassing both physical and intellectual
journeys. He was not afraid to draw on popular culture and Stanley
Kubrick was a strong influence. He would have been delighted
that his work was on show at a forward-thinking university with
a flagship in Creativity and Culture, and that his prints could be
enjoyed by a vibrant young student audience as well as staff and
international visitors.”
Professor Petra Wend, Principal of QMU, said: “The themes of
freedom, social justice and internationalism that dominate Dos
Santos’ work chime well with QMU’s ethos and these prints make
a real appealing addition to the campus environment.” ❒