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Curator to Director

How can curators aspiring to senior leadership positions go about taking the next step in their career?

Tuesday, 25 February 2025, 17:30-19:00

Online event – free to attend, booking is essential.

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As museums and galleries have evolved over recent decades, the role of the curator has changed in many ways, as has that of director and other senior leadership positions. How can curators aspiring towards senior leadership positions best navigate the various pathways towards them? In this online workshop, chaired by Sandra Penketh, Executive Director of Galleries and Collections Management at National Museums Liverpool, we hear from Jennifer Scott, Director, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, Chris Stephens, Director, Holburne Museum, Bath and Martina Droth, newly appointed Director, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven — gallery directors who have risen through the ranks of a curatorial career to lead organisations. We will also hear from Sarah James, who, as Partner at Isaacson Miller, one of the US’s premier executive search firms, has made many director-level museum appointments.

Find out what aspects of the curatorial skill set lend themselves best to senior leadership positions, and what other knowledge, skills and experience you can add to your CV to put yourself in the best stead to apply for such positions. Explore how you can re-orient your CV and job applications to speak the language of leadership and successfully showcase your aptitude to become an organisational architect and agenda-setter.

In 2024 we published the results of our Curatorial Workplace Wellbeing Survey. 59% of respondents identified a lack of clear paths towards career progression as being detrimental to their workplace wellbeing. This free online event seeks to offer a practical response to this issue. Including short talks, discussion and Q&A, it is aimed at early- and mid-career curators who are considering or curious about, transitioning into senior-level management roles.

Speaker biographies

Martina Droth is the Paul Mellon Director of the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA). She was the Chair of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History from 2016 to 2022. Recent curatorial projects include Marc Quinn History Painting + (YCBA, 2022); Bill Brandt | Henry Moore (Hepworth, Sainsbury Center, and YCBA, 2020–2022); Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery (YCBA and Fitzwilliam Museum, 2017–2018); and Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901 (YCBA and Tate Britain, 2014–2015). Prior to joining the YCBA, she was at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK. Her forthcoming exhibitions focus on the contemporary artists Tracey Emin and Hew Locke.

Sarah James is Partner + Arts and Culture Practice Leader at Prior to joining Isaacson, Miller. Sarah spent 20 years at Phillips Oppenheim, where she founded the firm’s visual arts practice and co-led its culture one and has been recruiting chief executives for national and international nonprofits since 1996. She has partnered with a variety of notable institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, World Monuments Fund, SFMOMA and the Hammer among many others. A native Angeleno and University of California, Berkeley graduate, she currently resides in New York City.

Sandra Penketh is Executive Director Art Galleries and Collections Care, National Museums Liverpool. This includes leading the fine and decorative art curators and the conservation and collections management staff. She has responsibility for the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley House and NML’s collection facilities. Sandra has worked on exhibitions, international tours and capital projects including the creation of new display galleries at World Museum Liverpool, the redevelopment of the south galleries at the Lady Lever Art Gallery and most recently the refurbishment of historic spaces at the Walker Art Gallery.

Jennifer Scott has been Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery since April 2017. As Director of the Holburne Museum, Bath (2014-2017), she led a successful fundraising campaign for the acquisition of Arthur Atherley by Sir Thomas Lawrence. From 2004-2014 Jennifer was Curator of Paintings at Royal Collection Trust. She previously worked at the National Gallery, London and National Museums Liverpool. She has curated numerous exhibitions and published widely on Dutch and Flemish painting. Recent projects include Rubens & Women (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2023), Rembrandt’s Light (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2019), Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty (The Holburne Museum, 2017).

Chris Stephens has been Director of the Holburne Museum, Bath, since July 2017. Before that he worked at Tate in London for twenty-one years, for much of that time as Head of Displays at Tate Britain and Lead Curator of Modern British Art. His numerous exhibitions include some of the Tate’s most successful shows, such as ‘Barbara Hepworth: Centenary’ at Tate St Ives in 2003 and, in London, ‘Francis Bacon’ (2008), ‘Henry Moore’ (2010), ‘Picasso and British Art’ (2012) and ‘David Hockney’ (2017). As a leading expert on modern British art, he has published extensively and his book – St Ives The Art and the Artists was published in 2018.

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