New Displays
National Portrait Gallery, 2023
Interpretation editor of gallery texts (panels and labels) for the National Portrait Gallery's new collection displays, which launched in June 2023.
recent projects
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New Displays
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Lavinia Fontana
National Gallery of Ireland, 2023Writer of audio guide script examining the life and career of Lavinia Fontana who blazed a trail through Renaissance Bologna and Rome. The production explored eighteen works and included an interview with curator Aoife Brady.
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Celf ar y Cyd
Museum Wales/Amgueddfa Cymru, 2023Writer of English/Welsh bilingual content (80+ biographies) for a new digital resource exploring modern and contemporary art in Wales.
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Lecture: From Wales to Italy
Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, June 2022Lecture and article examining the work of several artists from Wales who worked in Italy between the 18th and early 20th century, focusing in particular on Llewelyn Lloyd, an artist of Welsh extraction born in Italy in 1879.
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Saudia Arabian Museum of Contemporary Art
2022Writer of in-gallery texts (70+ labels) focusing on works by Saudi Arabian artists from the 1960s to the present day for a new museum of contemporary art in Jax, Saudi Arabia.
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Gallerie Estensi, Modena, Italy
2022Since 2016, translation of all in-gallery texts for temporary exhibitions and permanent collection displays (from Italian to English) at Galleria Estense, Biblioteca Estense and the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara.
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Multimedia Tour
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 2022Writer of new content for the multimedia tour dedicated to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection, including interviews with artists, curators and sitters, among them Ian Rankin (pictured).
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Art That Made Us
BBCTwo/The Open University, 2022Landmark series examining art in Britain over 1500 years. Featuring artists, scholars and commentators, the series looked at how works of art from the past helped shape the nation. Contributor (6/8 episodes).
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Frans Hals: The Male Portrait
The Wallace Collection, 2021Multimedia guide writer. Centring on the Laughing Cavalier, this exhibition explored Frans Hals's vivid male portraits, with the thirteen portraits on display showcasing his skill and technical mastery and providing a glimpse of the world that Hals and his sitters inhabited – the flourishing city of Haarlem in the early years of the Dutch Republic.
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The Story of Welsh Art,
BBC Four/BBC2 Wales, 2021Contributor to a BBC three-part series tracing the history of Welsh art, from prehistoric rock carvings to dramatic 18th- and 19th-century landscapes and the directions Welsh art has taken in the 20th century. Interviewed by presenter Huw Stephens on Thomas Jones's groundbreaking, small-scale oil sketches of the Neapolitan urban scene.
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An Artist's Adventure! Family Tour,
National Gallery of Ireland, 2020Creative development and writer of a dedicated tour for families to enjoy art, on site or online. Eager artist Eoin visits the Gallery looking for inspiration for his first big painting. Led by warder Íde, they encounter works from different times and places, even meeting some special guests! As Eoin finds ideas for his own painting, so too listeners are prompted to think and talk about creating their own masterpieces.
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Gauguin and the Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Ordrupgaard Collection
Royal Academy of Arts, 2020Audio guide writer. Denmark’s Ordrupgaard Collection is a treasure trove of important Impressionist works. This exhibition showcased 60 works by painters such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Morisot, Degas and Gauguin – many shown for the first time in the UK. The accompanying audio guide traced developments in 19th-century French painting alongside the history of the Ordrupgaard collection.
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Moment in Time: A Legacy of Photographs | Works from the Bank of America Collection
National Gallery of Ireland, 2020Audio guide writer. This exhibition traced the history of photography from its inception in the 19th century through its development in the 20th century, exploring the full technical and artistic range of the medium through works by leading photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Brassaï, Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange and more.
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Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light,
National Gallery of Ireland, 2019Audio guide writer. Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) was one of the most celebrated artists of his time in his native Spain, known for his sun-drenched depictions of beaches, gardens and landscapes, his family portraits, and large-scale paintings of social themes and Spanish life. This was the first exhibition of Sorolla's paintings to be held in Ireland.
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Modern Art, Christie's Online Course
Developed researched and wrote this series of six online lectures tracing the radical development that transformed European art in the early twentieth-century, from Fauvism to Surrealism. The course (still available online) explores the artistic movements that emerged at this time and highlights works by key artists which have recently sold at Christie’s.
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The Pre-Raphaelites: Love and Desire
Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2019Masterpieces from Tate Britain's collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings travel to Milan, among them key works by Millais, Rossetti, Madox Brown and Burne-Jones. As well as exploring the Pre-Raphaelites' work, the exhibition traced the inspiration these artists found in Italian art, culture, history and literature. Organised with Tate Britain. Audio guide writer and narrator.
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Shaping Ireland: Landscapes in Irish Art,
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 2019Exhibition looking at how the Irish landscape has been seen by artists over 250 years, from the 18th century to the present day. The works on show encompassed a range of artistic media and perspectives, revealing the role artists have played in visualising aspects of human impact on the environment. Audio guide writer.
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Gallerie Estensi
Modena & FerraraTransation of all interpretation texts for the newly refurbished permanent collection at the Galleria Estense in Modena and the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara, and for all temporary exhibitions, including one on the Muses of Belfiore. Translation from Italian into English.
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Klimt/Schiele, Drawings from the Albertina
Royal Academy of Arts, 2018This exhibition offered rare insight into the work of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, two of Austria’s most radical modernist artists. For the first time in the UK, their drawings were shown side-by-side, throwing light not only on their creative process, but also – more crucially – on their close artistic relationship. Audio guide writer.
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Turner: Works from Tate
Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, 2018Turner's watercolours are among his most radical and lyrical works, and range from public exhibition pieces to private experiments with colour and light. This exhibition presented ninety works from the Turner Bequest at Tate Britain, among them sketches, studies, watercolours, drawings and a selection of oils. Audio guide writer and narrator.
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Emil Nolde: Colour is Life
National Gallery of Ireland, 2018The first major exhibition dedicated to the German Expressionist artist Emil Nolde to be held in Ireland in over fifty years, which presented a colourful survey is Nolde's paintings, drawings, etchings and woodcuts, most on loan from the Nolde Foundation, Seebüll. Audio guide writer.
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Murillo: The Self Portraits
National Gallery, 2018This display brought together the only two known self portraits by the seventeenth-century master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, reunited for the first time in over three hundred years, and examined his use of illusionism in portraiture and genre paintings. Interpretation editor.
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Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites
National Gallery, 2018This exhibition presentsed the Arnolfini Portrait, which the National Gallery acquired in 1842, alongside works by Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt, and explored the painting's influence on the Pre-Raphaelite artists. Interpretation editor and audio guide writer.
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Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity
Leighton House Museum, 2017Lawrence Alma-Tadema, one of the most prominent artists of the late Victorian period, enjoyed great success as a painter of classical subjects. This was the first major presentation of his work to be held in London since 1913. Audio guide writer.
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Lady Lever Art Gallery
Port Sunlight, 2017Founded by the industrialist and philanthropist William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, the Lady Lever Art Gallery houses one of Britain's finest collections of fine and decorative arts. Highlights include the Wedgwood collection and Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite art. Audio guide writer/editor.
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Flaming June: The Making of an Icon
Leighton House Museum
4 November - 2 April, 2016This exhibition told the extraordinary story of Leighton's masterpiece, Flaming June, from the conception and unveiling of this icon of Victorian art in Leighton's house to its rise from oblivion to the heights of fame when it was rediscovered in the 1960s. Audio guide writer.
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Beyond Caravaggio
National Gallery
12 October - 15 January, 2016Caravaggio’s groundbreaking paintings, with their compelling naturalism, dramatic lighting and powerful storytelling, transformed art in early 17th-century Rome. During his lifetime his art brought him immediate renown, and after his untimely death, its impact reverberated around Europe. Interpretation editor and audio guide writer.
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Painters' Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck
National Gallery, London24 June - 4 September, 2016
Painters' Paintings brought together works of art once owned by Freud, Matisse, Degas, Leighton, Watts, Lawrence, Reynolds and Van Dyck, and examines why these painters acquired other artists'works. Writer of wall panels and labels, audioguide and web feature.
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In the Age of Giorgione
Royal Academy of Arts12 March - 6 June 2016
This exhibition examined a new dawn in Venetian art at the beginning of the 16th century: with Giovanni Bellini the leading artist in Venice, a younger generation, including Titian and Giorgione, emerged. Masterpieces by Giorgione are displayed alongside works by Bellini, Dürer, and TItian, among others. Author of Exhibition in Focus booklet.
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​Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art
National Gallery17 February - 22 May 2016
Eugène Delacroix was France’s leading exponent of Romanticism who, at the time of his death in 1863, was the most revered artist among the avant-garde in Paris. This exhibition traced 50 years of his legacy, exploring the profound impact he had on his contemporaries and on generations of artists to come, among them Cézanne, Van Gogh, Signac and Matisse. Audio guide writer.
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Visions of the Valleys, BBC Wales/BBC Four
March 2015
J.M.W. Turner visited the Neath valley in 1795, at the age of twenty, during one five painting trips he made to Wales as a young man. In this documentary on the visual representation of the south Wales valleys, I accompanied presenter Kim Howells to the spectacular Melincourt waterfall near Neath, following Turner's footsteps. Contributor.
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Inspired by Snowdonia, BBC Wales
Saturday, 13 June, 2015
This programme explored the depiction of Snowdonia's rugged landscape in art, from Richard Wilson and J.M.W. Turner in the 18th century, to the Victorian artists' colony in Betws y Coed, the modernist visions of J.D. Innes and twentieth-century master Kyffin Williams, concluding with artists working today. Presenter.
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Venus in View, BBC Radio 4
11.30-12.00, Thursday 13 March, 2014 (available on iPlayer)
One hundred years after Velázquez's only surviving nude, the Rokeby Venus, was targeted by the militant Suffragette Mary Richardson, this documentary explored the historical context of the attack and looks at how it was reported in the press. Contributions from Lynda Nead, author of 'The Female Nude', National Gallery curator Letizia Treves, cultural historian Hilda Kean and photographer Tom Hunter. Presenter.