Sandy Nairne

Director - National Portrait Gallery

Sandy Nairne took up the post of Director of the National Portrait Gallery in November 2002. He was Director of Programmes at Tate for eight years and was also directly responsible for the development of international and digital programmes, the Tate Partnership Scheme and the co-ordination of Tate public programmes as a whole. He has worked previously as Assistant Director, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Director of Exhibitions at the ICA and Director of Visual Arts for the Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1993 he was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship by the J.Paul Getty Trust, and in 2007 was a Visiting Fellow at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Sandy has worked as a curator and writer and is well known for his innovative television series and book State of the Art, 1987, and co-edited anthology Thinking about Exhibitions, 1996. He has curated and co-curated exhibitions which include Objects and Sculpture; Leon Golub; British Sculpture in the 20th Century; Jeff Wall; The Impossible Self; American Realities and the first retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. Sandy Nairne is a member of the Fabric Advisory Committee of St Paul's Cathedral, a member of the Councils of the Royal College of Art and the British School at Rome. He has lectured widely and chaired numerous conferences and seminars in Britain and abroad. In 2005/06 he chaired the National Museum Directors’ Conference Working Group on Cultural Diversity. His most recent book is The Portrait Now, National Portrait Gallery, 2006.