BIRMINGHAM, UK.- The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, presents Exceptional Beauty and Outstanding Merit: Acquisitions at the Barber Institute, 1991–2007, on view through 20 January 2008. More than eighty masterpieces have been purchased for the Barber Institute’s collection by the Trustees during the last seventeen years, under the directorship of Richard Verdi. Key paintings such as the Portrait of a Carmelite Prior by Rubens, Mother and Child by the Sea by Johan Christian Dahl, and the Portrait of Bartolomeo Savona by André Derain (above) number among these. In addition, there are major drawings, watercolours, prints and sculpture, all of which have magnificently extended the Barber collections and their reputation in Britain and overseas. This exhibition, which takes its title from Lady Barber’s vision, enshrined in the founding Trust Deed of 1932, celebrates these outstanding acquisitions and features all the newly acquired paintings and sculpture. Alongside these will be a representative group of the works on paper by artists including Pietro da Cortona, Matisse and Egon Schiele. It is accompanied by an explanatory gallery leaflet and a series of lectures.