LONDON.- David Hockney has appointed Edith Devaney in a newly created role of Managing Director and Curator and as such she will help manage the Hockney entities under his direction. He has also appointed her Editor-in-Chief of his Catalogue Raisonné project.

Edith Devaney will leave her position as Contemporary Curator and Head of Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London early next year to take up this position.

During her tenure, Devaney has instigated and curated many of the Royal Academy’s significant exhibitions of recent years which have included: David Hockney: A Bigger Picture in 2012, which attracted over 600,000 visitors making it the RA’s most successful contemporary exhibition ever; Abstract Expressionism in 2016, which along with Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth in 2017 were considerable critical successes. Devaney also transformed the Summer Exhibition into a much more successful and profitable exhibition concept.

Devaney has initiated and curated a number of exhibitions of David Hockney’s work and is planning to realise David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 in March 2021 at the RA. She will also deliver another scheduled loan exhibition for the Academy next year.




David Hockney said: “I have known and worked with Edith for many years. I was delighted when she agreed to take on this key position and I very much look forward to working closely with her.”

Edith Devaney said: “‘I am both honoured and excited to be taking on such a significant role working for and with David Hockney and look forward to playing a part in supporting, celebrating and documenting his ongoing extraordinary achievements.”

Axel Rüger, Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts said: “Edith Devaney is an exceptional curator and I would personally like to thank her for the impressive contribution she has made to the Royal Academy over the past 20 years. It is a great opportunity that she will be working with one of our Royal Academicians and I wish her every success in her new role.”

Contemporary Curator and Head of Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, Edith Devaney has transformed the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition over the past twenty years into the popular success it is today. Working closely with numerous national and international artists, both to showcase their work and involve them in shaping the exhibition, she has guided this once moribund annual event into its most sustained period of success within its 252 - year history.

She has also originated and co-curated a number of exhibitions at the Royal Academy including, Jasper Johns; ‘Something Resembling Truth’ in 2017 which travelled to the Broad, in Los Angeles. She originated and curated Abstract Expressionism, both at the Royal Academy in 2016, and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2017. She curated the David Hockney exhibition, 82 Portraits and one still-life, which toured to three venues across Europe and the US and was also responsible for the curation of the Hockney landscape exhibition, A Bigger Picture, in 2012. Other exhibitions include retrospectives on Allan Jones and Bill Woodrow, a survey of Richard Diebenkorn and an exhibition of the work of Phyllida Barlow. She co-curated a series of GSK Contemporary Exhibitions in the Academy’s Burlington Gardens building and was responsible for the Annenberg Courtyard sculpture programme where she curated installations by Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Cornelia Parker and Thomas Houseago amongst others. Most recently she co-curated the critically acclaimed Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch exhibition, which opened earlier this month.

Outside the Royal Academy Edith Devaney has contributed many essays to various publications and independently curated exhibitions, including, most recently, a retrospective survey on Arshile Gorky in Venice in 2019. She is also the Artistic Advisor to the Malta International Contemporary Art Space and is a board member of the International Catalogue Raisonné Association.