# Catalogues > Source: https://davidjury.com/catalogues/ In 2008 Colchester School of Art took over the running of the Minories Galleries. This is a contemporary art gallery which was open to the public and housed the Colchester School of Art's Postgraduate programmes. David Jury designed all the promotional material for the gallery and curating several exhibitions. **The Minories and Firstsite galleries** Under Alan Smith's leadership Colchester School of Art and Design took over the magnificent Minories Art Gallery in 2008, turning its upper floor into studios for three MA courses while keeping the spacious ground floor for exhibitions. Once ensconced Alan gave up his position as Head of the Art School to concentrate on the management of the Minories and for the next wonderful five years until his retirement Alan had what was probably the best time of his career in education. (Incidentally, I have known Alan since we were students on a Pre-Foundation course taking A level Art.) 'Wonderful' is certainly how I felt; running my own MA; Art, Design and the Book, designing all the promotional material for the gallery and curating several exhibitions, most important of which were retrospectives for *Romek Marber* and *Abram Games*, plus *Looking for the Photograph* and *Graphic Art and the Art of Illustration*. As our time at the Minories was coming to an end Colchester helped to fund the construction of a large, purpose-built and rather spectacular art gallery: Firstsite. It struggled to gain favour initially, but after a couple of difficult years a new director, Sally Shaw, was appointed and the gallery began to attract large number to its exhibitions. One of the ways Sally achieved this was by showing work by artists with links to North Essex such as Grayson Perry, Denis Wirth-Miller (with friends Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud) and photographer Ed Gold. ## Projects - [Colchester Arts Society](https://davidjury.com/catalogues/colchester-arts-society.md): The Minories, located in Colchester's St Botolph Quarter, was bought In 1956 by the Victor Batte-Lay Trust and converted into a gallery. The Trust built a collection new works and, in addition,… - [Graphic Art and the Art of Illustration](https://davidjury.com/catalogues/graphic-art-and-the-art-of-illustration.md): This exhibition, co-curated by Evelyn Bell, (curator of the Victor Batte-Lay Trust Collection) and Alan Smith (Director of The Minories) was based around the engraved work of John and Paul Nash… - [Ian Hay: A Life Drawing](https://davidjury.com/catalogues/ian-hay-a-life-drawing.md): Ian Hay had been a student at Colchester School of Art in the 1950s and then in the painting school at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s – just as Pop Art was erupting. Ian became a celebrated… - [MA Student Exhibition](https://davidjury.com/catalogues/ma-student-exhibition.md): Students of the three MA courses, each with their own permanent studio space on the first floor, also had the privilege of exhibiting their work in the gallery downstairs. Every year it was a tense… - [Looking for the Photograph](https://davidjury.com/catalogues/looking-for-the-photograph.md): This exhibition, curated by Duncan Wooldridge, was mounted to celebrate the work of the photographers teaching on the newly-formed BA Photography course at the Colchester Institute. Many of the… - [Underground Maps Unravelled](https://davidjury.com/catalogues/underground-maps-uravelled-xxplorations-in-information-design.md): Maxwell Robert became a lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex in 1993. His research interests include reasoning and intelligence, and which more recently has focused on information… --- David Jury · https://davidjury.com/ · Enquiries: jury.david@gmail.com