Giles Waterfield

Giles Waterfield
Occupation	Novelist, Art Historian, Curator
Genre	Fiction

Giles Waterfield is a British, McKitterick Prize winning novelist, art historian and curator.

Personal life and education

Giles Waterfield spent his childhood in Paris and Geneva, and was educated at the Eton College (1962-67). In 1971 he received BA in English Language and Literature from Magdalen College, Oxford and in 1975 MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute of Art.

Career

In 1971 Giles Waterfield began his one year work as an assistant teacher at the Merz-Schule, Stuttgart. From 1976 until 1979 he worked as Education Services Officer at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. In 1979 he became the Director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which position he held until 1996. Since then he devoted himself to writing, teaching and curating exhibitions. His consultancies included Britten-Pears Foundation, South Bank Centre, Royal Academy of Arts, Sotheby’s London, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, National Trust for England and Wales, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, Ince Blundell (for English Heritage). In 1996-2000 he was an expert adviser to Museums, Libraries and Archives Expert Panel of the Heritage Lottery Fund where he assessed and monitored around 100 applications for capital projects. As a special adviser on arts and heritage to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (2002-2007) he initiated a Regional Museums Initiative to fund exhibitions in regional museums, and advised on a wide variety of museum applications. He was also a trustee of National Heritage Memorial Fund/Heritage Lottery Fund (2000-2006) and member of various committees: South East Regional Committee, National Trust (1982-1988); National Heritage Executive Committee and Judge, Museum of the Year Awards (1998-2003); Executive Committee, The London Library (1998-2001); Vice-President, National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies (1998-2006); trustee, Holburne Museum, Bath (1999-2003); trustee, Edward James Foundation, West Dean, West Sussex (1999-2003); Advisory Committee, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2002-2007); Arts Panel, National Trust for England and Wales (2004-2015); Expert Advisory Panel, National Heritage Memorial Fund (2006-2013); trustee 2005-2013, Charleston Trust Chair (2007-2010); Chair, Old Houses New Visions (2010- ); Trustee, Garden Museum, London (2010- ); Trustee, Emery Walker Foundation (2013- ).

Works

• The Long Afternoon (2000)
• The Hound In the Left Hand Corner (2002)
• Markham Thorpe (2006)
• The Iron Necklace (2015)

Exhibitions

• Collection for a King travelling exhibition to Washington, Los Angeles and New York (1985)
• Soane and After at Dulwich Picture Gallery (1987)
• Mr. Cartwright's Pictures (1987)
• A Nest of Nightingales (1988)
• Leaving Portraits from Eton College (1991)
• Palaces of Art Dulwich Picture Gallery and National Gallery of Scotland (1991)
• Treasures of a Polish King exchange exhibition with Royal Castle, Warsaw (1992)
• Art for the People (1994)
• Edward Alleyn: Elizabethan Actor, Jacobean Gentleman (1994)
• Soane and Death (1996)
• Art Treasures of England Royal Academy of Art, London (1998)
• In Celebration: the Art of the Country House Tate Gallery, London (1998-9)
• Below Stairs National Portrait Galleries, London and Edinburgh (2003-4)
• The Artist’s Studio Compton Verney, Warwickshire; Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia (2009-10)
• The Painting Room at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury (October 2015)

Art Publications

• Soane and After: The Architecture of Dulwich Picture Gallery (1987)
• Rich Summer of Art: A Regency Collection seen through Victorian Eyes (1988)
• Palaces of Art: Art Galleries in Britain 1790-1990 (1991)
• The Gallery Catalogue in Nineteenth Century Britain in New Research in Museum Studies, 1994 volume (1994)
• Art for the People, editor and contributor (1994)
• Art Treasures of England, joint editor and contributor (1998)
• A Victorian Salon: Paintings from the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, contributor (1998)
• Below Stairs: The Servant’s Portrait, joint editor and contributor (2004)
• Opening Doors: Learning and the Historic Environment, a report for the Attingham Trust, editor and principal contributor (2004)
• Realms of Memory: changing perceptions of the country house in (ed.) Michael Forsyth, Understanding historic building conservation (2007)
• The Artist’s Studio exhibition catalogue, editor (2009)
• The People's Galleries: Art Museums and Exhibitions in Victorian Britain, to be published by Yale University Press (2015)