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Barry Hughes

Areas of Interest

Arts, Education

Honorary Award

Honorary Fellow, 1998

Biography

Barry Hughes was Vice Principal of the Norwich School of Art & Design from 1988 to 1997. Educated at Wigan School of Art and Blackpool School of Art he later attended Leicester College of Art and Design to study commercial design, and to qualify as a teacher. He went on to teach at a number of institutions, including Great Yarmouth College of Art and Design, Nene College in Northampton, at Northampton School of Art, and of course at Norwich. Since moving to Norfolk he has contributed to a great many exhibitions and has acted as consultant to many companies within the region. Yet perhaps his greatest contribution during his time at Norwich was in the role he played in establishing the partnership between the University and colleges in the region. He has since gone on to act as an adviser to our University and as assessor for many of the art programmes offered through the regional colleges.

In 1998 Barry Hughes was made an Honorary Fellow of the University.



Citation

"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in recommending the award of an Honorary Fellowship of the University on Mr Barry Hughes, formerly Vice Principal of the Norwich School of Art & Design.

When Barry Hughes retired earlier last year he had been Vice Principal of the School since 1988. Before that he had taught at Great Yarmouth College of Art and Design, at Nene College in Northampton and at Northampton School of Art.

Barry is a Lancastrian where he was at school. He then studied commercial art part-time at Wigan School of Art. He then went as a full time student to Blackpool School of Art and Leicester College of Art and Design to study commercial design and gain teacher qualifications. Over the years he has contributed to countless exhibitions and acted as consultant to numerous companies and institutions in the Norfolk area. I would have been intrigued to see his contribution to an exhibition enticingly entitled "Inside, Outside, Down and Up" in 1974. His present interest is landscape based on Norfolk using watercolour and pencil.

But we honour Barry today as a friend of the University and for the singular contribution which he made to establishing the regional partnership of University and colleges in the region. He acted as an adviser to the University on many matters relating to art and design and was particularly influential in the work of our regional office when it began the process of franchising art, design and illustration and photography courses to colleges in the region. He acted as the University's assessor for the programmes. He encouraged lecturers to develop their skills at curriculum design and to embark on enterprising teaching programmes with their students. This is recalled with particular affection at Lowestoft College where there are now three art and design programmes validated by APU.

Barry is God's gift on a committee. He has an ability to keep a sense of proportion in even the most heated situations. He does this by an unfailing sense of humour and by the quality of his doodles. He could produce the most intricate and aesthetically pleasing doodles in the most mind-blowingly boring discussions. He is also remembered for a quality which others of us who know North Norfolk well could never understand - an ever present suntan.

Above all he combined a strong belief in maintaining standards with encouraging others to find the excitement and satisfaction from the world of art and design that he did himself and to convey this to students.

It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I invite you, Vice Chancellor, on behalf of the Chancellor of the University, to confer an Honorary Fellowship of the University on Mr Barry Hughes."