Alistair Smith in conversation with Colin Wiggins
About
The Gallery has had strong relationships to practising artists ever since its inception, from JMW Turner in 1824 to our current Artist in Residence, Katrina Palmer.
Susanna Avery-Quash, curator of 'Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look', is joined by former colleagues Alistair Smith and Colin Wiggins to reflect on ‘The Artist’s Eye’ series and how living artists have also responded to our collection through residencies and by creating new work. They also touch on the Associate Artists series, of which David Hockney was part of, and also featured artists including Paula Rego and Lucian Freud.
Speakers
Dr Susanna Avery-Quash is Lead Curator, in charge of pre-1900 objects in our Contextual Collection, and responsible for activities associated with our research strands, ‘Buying, Collecting and Display’ and ‘Art and Religion’ and our Women and the Arts Forum. Her research focuses on Sir Charles Eastlake, the first Director of the National Gallery and the history of the National Gallery, as well as wider histories of collecting and the art market. Recent co-edited publications include 'Leonardo in Britain: Collections and Historical Reception' (2019), and 'Old Masters Worldwide: Markets, Movements and Museums, 1789-1939' (2021) and the exhibition catalogue, ‘Creating a National Collection: The Partnership between Southampton City Art Gallery and the National Gallery’ (2021).
Alistair Smith curated the David Hockney exhibition ‘Looking at Pictures on a Screen’ (1981) as one of the original series of 'The Artist’s Eye'. As Head of Exhibitions and Education at the National Gallery he developed other series and interventions and initiated the Artist in Residence scheme, which came to have influence on museum practice throughout the UK. Alistair is proud to have been awarded an Honorary MA by the Open University. He left the Gallery in 1989 to take on the Directorship of the Whitworth Art Gallery (University of Manchester). In retirement he devotes himself to creative writing.
Colin Wiggins was Special Projects Curator at the National Gallery until 2016. Before taking up this post in 2011 he worked in the Gallery’s Education Department where he had special responsibility for the Associate Artist scheme, working with artists such as Paula Rego, Peter Blake, Ana Maria Pacheco and Michael Landy. He has also curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of, amongst others, Frank Auerbach, Anthony Caro, RB Kitaj, Ed and Nancy Kienholz and Bridget Riley. He has lectured widely in the United States and Europe and is a practising printmaker, with work in various collections including the Los Angeles County Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Hockney and The Artist’s Eye
Alistair Smith in conversation with Colin Wiggins
Free
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