Giles Waterfield


Giles Waterfield was 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 Magdalen College, Oxford and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Career

In 1971 Giles Waterfield began his one-year work as an assistant teacher at the, 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, where he remained until 1996. Since then he has been an independent curator, writer and university lecturer.
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. 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 he initiated a Regional Museums Initiative to fund exhibitions in regional museums. He was also a trustee of National Heritage Memorial Fund/Heritage Lottery Fund and member of various committees: South East Regional Committee, National Trust ; National Heritage Executive Committee and Judge, Museum of the Year Awards ; Executive Committee, The London Library ; Vice-President, National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies ; trustee, Holburne Museum, Bath ; trustee, Edward James Foundation, West Dean, West Sussex ; Advisory Committee, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art ; Arts Panel, National Trust for England and Wales ; Expert Advisory Panel, National Heritage Memorial Fund ; trustee 2005–2013, Charleston Trust Chair. Since 1994 Giles Waterfield is deeply involved in the activity of the Attingham Trust, first as a Joint Director of the Attingham Summer School and since 1995 as Director of Royal Collection Studies.
He is currently Chair, Old Houses New Visions ; Trustee, Garden Museum, London ; Trustee, Emery Walker Foundation, Member, Acceptance in Lieu Panel, Arts Council of England.
He was Associate Scholar at The Courtauld Institute of Art.
From 1994 Giles Waterfield was involved in the activity of the Attingham Trust, as Joint Director of the Attingham Summer School and since 1995 as Director of Royal Collection Studies. He is an Associate Lecturer at The Courtauld Institute of Art and also teaches at the University of Notre Dame and Arcadia University.
Waterfield curated numerous exhibitions, notably Soane and After Palaces of Art, Art Treasures of England Royal Academy of Art, London, In Celebration: the Art of the Country House, Below Stairs, The Artist’s Studio.

Works