The fine art collections of university museums are diverse, surprising, rich and not as well known as they should be. Although one or two go back a century or more (and the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow has eighteenth-century origins) and were founded on bequests and specific funds, most are of more recent vintage. One, at least, the University of Warwick, became the guardian of a tailor-made collection of modern British art acquired by the Borough of Rugby; another, at the University of Hull, with a focus on the period 1890 to 1940 in British painting and sculpture, was the vision of one man, Malcolm Easton, who also added a valuable documentary section of relevant letters and ­photographs. With the Barber Institute at the University of ­Birmingham we move into one of the most absorbing of such ­collections, with its European focus ranging from ancient art and the Renaissance to Léger and Magritte. The Hatton Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne has a miscellaneous teaching collection but is famous for owning Kurt Schwitters’s Merzbau. The University of Leeds has some of the French and British works collected by its former Vice-Chancellor Sir Michael Sadler (as well as his Kashmir shawls), a superb collection of Camden Town Group works on paper and the fruits of the University’s Gregory Fellows in ­painting and sculpture. The Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia needs little introduction either for the renown of its building by Norman Foster or its assembly of ancient and non-Western sculpture, modern European works, particularly by ­Giacometti and Bacon, its Anderson holdings of Art Nouveau and its separately conceived collection of constructivist and abstract art.

Some of these sample galleries hold temporary exhibitions but in the majority of cases these involve the removal of parts of the permanent display. One recent university collection is the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, which travels a schizophrenic path between ‘white cube’ contemporary shows and allegiance to its past which includes the Torrie Collection of old masters, earlier bronzes and much else which cannot be shown for lack of space.

The reasons why universities have art galleries attached to them are various and entwined. They include well-intentioned gifts or bequests from former students or teachers so that works of art might be visible in an institution’s public spaces; teaching-based collections, the majority of which came into being after the Second World War with the establishment of History of Art or Fine Art Departments; or simply to help civilise the academic ­population and encourage ‘the enjoyment of art’ (Lady Barber’s motive in Birmingham). Nearly all these institutions suffer from financial cuts, chronic underfunding, reduced curatorial staff and some lack of direction in any programme of displays and exhibitions. With the changes in the teaching of art history over recent decades, collections assembled to serve an object-based discipline have become somewhat redundant. Others, however, have made great efforts in serving a public far beyond any academic purpose.

Of this last type, the Whitworth Art Gallery – rebranded as the Whitworth – has a conspicuously successful record. Situated on the campus of the University of Manchester, it has a longer ­history than most such galleries, having begun in the late ­nineteenth century as a philanthropic cultural venture for the ‘perpetual gratification of the people of Manchester’. Sir Joseph Whitworth, the inventor, entrepreneur and millionaire, bequeathed funds for the rather grim red-brick building, Jacobean Civic in style, set back from Oxford Road in a landscaped park. It did not, however, become part of the University until 1958. It is principally noted for two outstanding collections – English watercolours based on the great gift of John Edward Taylor (1830–1905) and its collection of printed textiles, related designs and wallpapers from the eighteenth-century onwards, rooted in the manufacturing history of Manchester. These are the twin peaks around which further collections nestle – European and British prints and drawings,1 modern British paintings and contemporary art (recently enhanced by a substantial gift from the Karpidas Foundation).

Earlier this year the Gallery re-opened after the most extensive enlargement and redisplay in its history. The façade remains much as it has since 1908 but the building has been very considerably extended at the back to plans by McInnes Usher McKnight at a cost of £15 million. It now has an enviable suite of gallery spaces for the permanent collection and temporary shows; there is much more natural light; low ceilings have been removed; there is a sensitive deployment of materials; a new Collections Centre; and visitors inside are now made more aware of the landscape setting beyond.

While the whole project has received commendable press ­publicity and there have been admiring reviews for the temporary show devoted to selected works by Cornelia Parker, relatively ­little has been said about the treatment of the permanent collection, especially those two highpoints mentioned above. Both are represented in the first gallery from the entrance hall and are ­cursorily displayed as if to say: ‘Let’s get the older art out of the way as quickly as possible before we reach the contemporary shows which are what the public wants’. The watercolours and drawings are hung on three short walls at one end of the gallery, sometimes five or six deep – the lowest just above the floor, the highest ­difficult to inspect without a stepladder. There are no wall labels; the visitor is provided instead with an A4 sheet for each wall with a plan of the hang – small numbered rectangles with minimal accompanying information. Superb examples by Blake, Girtin, Turner, Cozens et al. are almost throttled to death by such a ­presentation. Textiles and wallpapers are confined to the other end of the room, some in three ‘shop windows’ in a token hang. The gallery beyond is similarly hung with large miscellaneous groups under the catch-all title Portraits, covering several centuries of prints, drawings and some paintings, with a just discernible thread running through them commemorating past staff and benefactors. There appears to be little grasp here of visual acuity or even an overall coherence based on any taxonomical consideration, save that the works all depict people. This shows a lack of curatorial nerve and imagination. That these are not lacking is, however, exemplified in an ebullient room devoted to British art in the 1960s where Blake, Riley, Richard Smith and Hockney, among others, are well shown. In any future re-hang, thought must ­surely be given to a more engaging and informative display of the historic collections. Whatever else the Whitworth wishes to be, it is still, after all, a university museum.

1     The Whitworth was the first British public collection to own a work by Picasso, his Frugal meal (1904), given by Michael Sadler in 1922; but it is not on view.