New Director for the Royal Collection
November 29 2017
Picture: NMDC
Tim Knox has been appointed the new director of the Royal Collection Trust. He has been director of the Fitzwilliam since 2013, and will leave next year. I’m biased because I know and like Tim, but as someone of great energy and openness to new ideas I think he’s an excellent choice to take the Royal Collection forward, given the challenges it faces. Tim of course has much to build on; not only the pre-eminence of the collection itself, but also the exhibition and publication programme, which in my opinion is probably the best in the world.
Questions for the future might include: how to increase access to what is a ‘working’ collection (by forming for example more lending partnerships with regional galleries); whether to include in their exhibitions works from other collections (currently RC shows are strictly limited to RC works, which is sometimes rather limiting); and the big one - whether to create a larger permanent exhibition space in one of the palaces.
One of the first things I shall be haranguing Tim about is the rather bum deal we get up here in Scotland. The Queen’s Gallery in Holyrood gets most of the London exhibitions, and is a good space. But the Palace of Holyrood itself is very thinly served; it could and should display a far better and longer term selection of works from the Collection.
