About us

Image: Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, 1884-95, cast 1907-08. Department of Media, Culture and Sport, London. ArtFunded 1913.

As the Trustee body of The Art Fund, the Board has the primary task of considering applications from museums and galleries for grants towards the purchase of works of art, and offers of gifts as well as bequests. Members include art historians, collectors and others with relevant artistic or business expertise. The combined knowledge of the Board covers art of all kinds and periods. When additional specialist knowledge is required, members of the Advisory Council and other experts may be consulted.

CHAIRMAN

David Verey CBE

Elected 2004

Positions include: Chairman, The Blackstone Group – UK; Director, Daily Mail and General Trust plc; Director, Sofina SA; Member of the Supervisory Board of Bank Gutmann; Fellow of Eton College; Member of the Finance Committee of Trinity College, Cambridge; Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford; Chairman of the Tate Gallery Trustees, 1998–2004.

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TREASURER

Paul Zuckerman

Elected 2004

Positions include: Chairman, Zuckerman & Associates Ltd; Director Pall Mall Capital Ltd; Director, BlackRock; Board Member, International Plant Genetics Resources Institute, Rome; Treasurer, International Women’s Health Coalition, NY.

Favorite ArtFunded work

I have always enjoyed the works of Duncan Grant.  Charleston in its beautiful setting evokes the spirit of the '30s and it seems appropriate that the Treasurer should select an image of Maynard Keynes. It is delicate, poignant, and colourful and appeals to me as a painting in its own right.

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DIRECTOR

David Barrie

Elected 1992

Positions include: Trustee, Campaign for Museums, 2005–; Trustee, Butterfly Conservation, 2003–; Board member, Council for Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA), 2000–; member of Acceptance-in-Lieu Panel, MLA, 2000–; Trustee, Ruskin Foundation, 1996–; Executive Director, Japan Festival 1991, 1989–92; HM Diplomatic Service, 1975–87. Publications include: edition of John Ruskin’s Modern Painters,1987(rev edn,2000).

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Dr Wendy Baron OBE

Elected 1998

Positions include: Trustee, Ben Uri Gallery, 2006-; Director, Government Art Collection, 1978–97. Exhibitions include: Sickert Paintings, Royal Academy, 1992. Publications include: Sickert: Paintings and Drawings, 2006; Perfect Moderns, 2000.

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Professor Michael Craig-Martin  RA CBE

Elected 2005

Positions include: Emeritus Professor of Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2001-; Tate Trustee, 1990–9; British representative at 24th São Paulo Bienal, 1998. Exhibitions include: Michael Craig-Martin: Works 1964-2006, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2006/7; Signs of Life, Kunshaus Bregenz, 2006. Commissions include: The Fan, London, 2003. Architectural collaboration and installation, Laban Dance Centre, London 2002; Swiss Light, Tate Modern 1999.

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William Govett

Elected 1985

Positions include: Chairman, John Govett & Co Ltd, 1974–86; Directorships include Chairman, 3i Smaller Quoted Companies Trust; Insight Investment Management; Trustee, Tate Gallery, 1988–93.

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Christopher Lloyd CVO

Elected 2005

Positions include: Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures,1988–2005; Governor of Gainsborough’s House, 2005–; Trustee of Living Paintings Trust, 2005–; Assistant Keeper, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Department of Western Art), 1968–88; Publications include: Enchanting the Eye: Dutch Seventeenth Century Paintings in the Royal Collection (2004); Italian Paintings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago (1993); Camille Pissarro (1981).

Favorite ArtFunded work

The Forest Fire (c 1505) by Piero di Cosimo was acquired in 1933 by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, with the help of The Art Fund.  It formed part of a series of pictures illustrating th early history of man  based on a long poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe) by the Roman philosopher-poet Lucretius.  It is the subject of much, often heated, debate, which is summarised in my Catalogue of the Earlier Italian Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum (1977).

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Dr David Landau

Elected 1996

Positions include: Editor, Print Quarterly, 1984–; Chairman, National Gallery Company, 1998–2003; Trustee, National Gallery, 1996–2003. Publications include: The Renaissance Print (with Professor Peter Parshall), 1994.

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Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn FBA FSA

Elected 2000

Positions include: Disney Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, University of Cambridge; Director, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1990–2004. Trustee, British Museum, 1991-2001; Master, Jesus College, Cambridge, 1986-97;. Publications include: Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archaeology, 2000; Figuring it Out, 2003.

Favorite ArtFunded work

Anselm Kiefer's Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom is more than a painting: festooned with ageing brambles and decaying roses, it seems to evoke a remote past, although in fact the painting depicts a larger-than life staute of Chairman Mao, such as Kiefer would have seen in China during the early 1990s. But the flowers have faded now.  Like his earlier confrontations with his own twentieth century German inheritance, it seems momentous, tragic perhaps, and in this case certainly unresolved.  This is a past, not yet faded from memory, not yet buried, yet returning to haunt us. Here a great artist interrogates the legacy of one of the towering figures of the twentieth century.  As in many of Kiefer's paintings, time itself seems here an ominous presence.  Perhaps time will tell.

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Jonathan Marsden LVO FSA

Elected 2005

Positions include: Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art, 1996–; Hon Editorial Secretary, Furniture History Society, 2005–; Historic Buildings Representative, National Trust (North Wales/Thames & Chilterns regions), 1985–95; Research Assistant, The Treasure Houses of Britain,Washington, DC, 1983–5. Publications include: The Wisdom of George the Third, 2005 (ed).

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Sally Osman

Elected 2007

Positions include: Head of Marketing, Communications and Audiences, BBC Television, 2005–; Head of Communications, BBC, 2000–; Head of Corporate and Public Relations, Channel 5, 1996–9; Publishing Director, Redwood Publishing, 1994–6; Director, Press and Publicity, BSkyB, 1991–94. Trustee, National Foundation for Youth Music, 2003–. Fellow and Vice Chairman, Royal Television Society.

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Charles Sebag-Montefiore FCA FSA

Elected 2000

Positions include: Director, Ludgate Investments Ltd and Hightex Group plc; Hon Treasurer, Friends of the National Libraries; National Manuscripts Conservation Trust; Trustee, Samuel Courtauld Trust. Publications: contributions to Dictionary of National Biography.

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Timothy Stevens OBE

Elected 2000

Positions include: Executive Director, Gilbert Collection, 2002–; Director, Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, 2001–2; Assistant Director (Collections), Victoria and Albert Museum, 1994–2000.

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Dr Deborah Swallow

Elected 2006

Positions include: Märit Rausing Director, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2004-; Director of Collections and Keeper, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2001-4; Executive Trustee, Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum; Trustee, Sheffield Galleries & Museums Trust; Trustee, Textile Conservation  Centre Foundation; Trustee, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (UK).

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Professor William Vaughan

Elected 2005

Positions include: Pevsner Professor Emeritus of History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London, [dates]. Exhibitions include: Samuel Palmer, The British Museum, 2005. Publications include: Romanticism and Art, 1994.

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The Hon Felicity Waley-Cohen

Elected 1988

Positions include: Director, Felicity Samuel Gallery, 1972–82; Trustee, Tate Gallery Foundation, 1987–; Founder Chairman, Patrons of New Art, 1982–7; Vice- Chairman, Serpentine Gallery, 1993–; Trustee, Kensington and Chelsea Public Arts Board, 2006-.

Favorite ArtFunded work

My favorite work of art is Auerbach's Park Village East-Winter. I sat opposite it for a whole meeting and its energy, exuberance and colour were wholly addictive.  A winter's day; not quiet, but full fo warmth, vibrancy and domestic indicidents interplaying with dark and jagged drama.

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ADVISORY COUNCIL

 
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