Thursday 17th November 2016
Giles Waterfield, who has died suddenly in Derbyshire from a heart attack on 5th November 2016, aged 67, accomplished vital rescue work as director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery from 1979 to 1996.
Subsequently he became a freelance art expert, covering a multitude of subjects and filling an extraordinary number of roles as lecturer, adviser and administrator.
Exceptionally well-read, he was also a distinguished author, both as novelist and art historian. His novel The Long Afternoon (2000), a tragedy closely based on his grandparents’ life in a splendid villa in Menton, showed how a purposeless existence, for all its superficial attractions, risks sapping the will and turning aside the currents of action. Written in beautifully spare prose, it is a penetrating psychological study, which won the McKitterick prize.
(The Daily Telegraph, Obituaries, 17/11/2016)
Giles Waterfield (July 24th, 1949 – November 5th, 2016)
Giles Adrian Waterfield was born at Bramley, Surrey on July 24th 1949, the second son and third child of Anthony Waterfield and Honor Waterfield. Anthony Waterfield then worked for the Ministry of Aircraft Production and subsequently as scientific adviser to the British Embassy in Paris.
Giles was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. After Oxford, Waterfield studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he was deeply impressed by his tutor, Anthony Blunt. When Blunt was publicly outed as a spy in 1979, Waterfield remained conspicuously loyal, writing with Mark Jones a letter to The Times in which he declared: “For us, he remains a scholar and a gentleman.”
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 (first) 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 (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. 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). Since 1994 Giles Waterfield is deeply involved in the activity of the Attingham Trust, first as a Joint Director of the Attingham Summer School (until 2003) and since 1995 as Director of Royal Collection Studies. He is currently Chair, Old Houses New Visions (2010– ); Trustee, Garden Museum, London (2010– ); Trustee, Emery Walker Foundation (2013– ), 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 (1994–2003) 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 (London center) and Arcadia University (in London).
Waterfield curated numerous exhibitions, notably Soane and After (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1987) Palaces of Art (Dulwich Picture Gallery and National Gallery of Scotland, 1991), 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 Gallery, London and National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 2003-4), The Artist’s Studio (Compton Verney and Sainsbury Centre, UEA, 2009–10).
(en.wikipedia.org)
Best Wishes
Claire Moore BA(Hons)
GALLERY MANAGER
THE FLETCHER GATE FINE ART GALLERY
ART - "A CURIOUS LOVE" 