Blunt Speaking
Pamela Tudor-Craig describes the origins of her fascination with the Middle Ages and the moment which decided her path as a Medievalist
In the second year of our degree course at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1948, we were introduced to the heady experience of tutorials with the senior staff. A small group of us would assemble regularly at 20, Portman Square, in the palatial study of the Institute's new and relatively young Director, Professor Anthony Blunt. Van Gogh's self-portrait with the bandage over his freshly amputated ear hung just inside the door.
I was the only one in my year to have come to university straight from school. All the others had several years of wartime work behind them, constituting a lifetime of greater maturity. At our first session the Director asked each of us whether we had yet chosen our period for special study. First to be asked was a petite, dark haired lady with an air of enviable sophistication. She declared that she was thinking of becoming a medievalist.
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