A New Home for a Growing Collection Dawn Ades British Academy - Flipbook - Page 3
British Academy Transformation Project
A New Home for a Growing Collection
Dawn Ades CBE FBA is Chair of the British Academy Art Committee, Professor
Emerita of the History and Theory of Art at the University of Essex, a Fellow of the
British Academy since 1996, Professor of the History of Art at the Royal Academy, a
former trustee of Tate and The National Gallery and was awarded a CBE in 2013 for
her services to Higher Education. She has curated or co-curated many exhibitions
in the UK and internationally over the past forty years, including Dada and
Surrealism Reviewed (1978); Art in Latin America (1989); the Salvador Dalí
centenary at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2004); Undercover Surrealism: Georges
Bataille and Documents, (with Simon Baker) Hayward Gallery (2006); The Colour
of my Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2011),
and Dalí/Duchamp at the Royal Academy (2017). She was Associate Curator for
Manifesta 9 (2012). Apart from the catalogues of these and other exhibitions,
publications include Photomontage (1976, revised 1986 and 2022), Marcel Duchamp
(with Cox & Hopkins, 1999 and 2022) and Selected Writings on Art and Anti-Art
(2015). Research on Dada and Surrealism has shifted increasingly though not
exclusively to the women artists and poets associated with these movements, with
publications on Hannah Höch, Mina Loy, Maria Izquierdo, Frida Kahlo, Leonora
Carrington, Cecilia Vicuña and Claude Cahun.
Dr Sharon Messenger is the Heritage Collections Manager at the British Academy.
She is responsible for the curation, care of, and access to the Academy’s three
Heritage Collections: Archives, Library and Art. The Academy is proud of its rich
and varied Collection of art. The display of over 100 works include paintings,
ceramics, prints, textiles and sculpture. Traditional oils and bronzes complement
the historic building, while contemporary art by British artists asserts the
modernity of the Academy’s outlook. Recent acquisitions to the Collection include
works by Yinka Shonibare and Hew Locke. Sharon has been working closely with
partners at Bloomberg Connects, bringing the Academy’s Collection to wider and
more diverse audiences through their digital app. Sharon has a PhD in social
history from the University of Liverpool and completed her archival training at UCL
in 2010. Previous archival and curatorial roles have included working with
Wellcome Collection and the heritage Collections at the Royal College of General
Practitioners.
Stephen Schwendel Smith is a Partner at Wright & Wright Architects and played a
key role in the remodelling of the British Academy, transforming its historic
headquarters into a forward-facing hub for research and global engagement. His
other major projects include the award-winning Lambeth Palace Library, a new
Library for Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Enterprise Hub for the Royal
Academy of Engineering. Beyond his practice, Stephen is a member of Historic
England’s Advisory Committee and a consultant to Glass-House Community Led
Design. He has taught at the University of Cambridge, where he won the Sir Leslie
Martin Prize and the Dissertation Prize, and studied at MIT and Harvard Graduate
School of Design.
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