David Heathcote (born 1931) is a British artist, collector and academic. During the 1960s and 1970s he assembled a significant collection of Hausa textiles, costume and leather-work, much of which is now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Biography

David Hunter Heathcote was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1931. He studied at

Canterbury College of Art The Kent Institute of Art & Design (KIAD, often ) was an art school based across three campuses in the county of Kent, in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone Col ...

and the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

during the late 1950s. Heathcote then worked for twenty years in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, an experience that would contribute significantly to his creative output. He took up a teaching post in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

in 1959 and had his first one-person show in

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

in 1967. From 1967 to 1979 he was Head of Art History at

Ahmadu Bello University Ahmadu Bello University Zaria is a federal government research university in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. ABU was founded on 4 October 1962, as the pioneer university in Northern Nigeria. It was founded and named after the Sardauna of Sokoto, Al ...

. Heathcote returned to England and settled in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

in 1979, working on his own paintings for several years. He then obtained a part-time post at Christ Church College, later becoming a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art and Design. He retired from the college in 1996 but continued to practice as an artist. Heathcote's PhD dissertation on The Embroidery of Hausa Dress is deposited in the archives of the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

in London, along with other related material. During the 1960s and 1970s, Heathcote was a major collector of Hausa artifacts, including textiles, costume and leather-work. He also undertook ground-breaking research into Hausa costume, including the embroidery of Hausa dress. He mounted a full-scale Hausa exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute in 1976, writing the catalogue and creating a documentary film. The

subsequently acquired many of the objects from the exhibition, which was also covered by the BBC's African Service. The British Museum's online catalogue lists some 391 objects associated with Heathcote. Heathcote's artworks are in the

, the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

and other public and private collections.

Exhibitions

Heathcote's work has been included in exhibitions starting with the 1958 ''Young Contemporaries'' touring exhibition. *2011 Beyond Horizons, GV Art, Chiltern Street, London (solo) *2013 Beyond Horizons, Beckel Odille Boïcos Gallery, Paris, with GV Art (solo) *2014 Numberless Islands, GV Art, Chiltern Street, London (solo) *2017 Travels in Arcadia, Norman Plastow Gallery, Wimbledon, with GV Art (solo)

Published works

* 2011 – ''A Shell Eye on England: The Shell County Guides 1934–1984''. Faringdon: Libri Publishing. ()

References

External links

GV Art webpage for David Heathcote
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heathcote, David British artists 1931 births Living people