LONDON.- Art Fund, the national charity for art, announced the appointment of Clare Gough, Abadesi Osunsade, and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, to its board of trustees. The appointments are for an initial period of 4 years from October 2022.
The trustees' primary role is to oversee the effective working of Art Fund; they also have oversight of the charitable programme which provides millions of pounds in grants every year to help museums to acquire and share works of art across the UK, further the professional development of their curators, and inspire more people to visit and enjoy their public programmes. The board has a diverse range of skills, and consists of art and museum experts, and recognised specialists in other fields such as marketing, finance and fundraising.
On the appointment of the three new trustees, Chairman Lord Smith of Finsbury said, ‘We are delighted to welcome three new trustees to our board. They join at an exciting time for Art Fund, as we build on our 119-year history of saving art for the nation, connecting it with our burgeoning role helping to build and broaden audiences and amplifying the work of the more than 800 museums in our network.’
Clare Gough is the Founding Director of Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, responsible for overseeing the conservation and reopening to the public of Sir John Soane’s country house, Pitzhanger Manor, and the launch of its new programme of contemporary exhibitions. These exhibitions have included Anish Kapoor, Es Devlin, and Rana Begum, among others. Clare was previously a Trustee of the Museum of the Home; Director of Communications & Media at the National Gallery; and New Media Director of the National Gallery’s trading company. As an arts & media consultant she was Producer for the National Gallery of the live-to-cinema film ‘Leonardo Live’ and for the V&A ‘David Bowie is’. Clare was formerly a management consultant with McKinsey & Co.
Abadesi is the founder and CEO of Hustle Crew, a careers community on a mission to centre the workplace on inclusion, belonging and redistributing power. Abadesi is Co-Host of the Techish podcast, which is listed in the top 20 Tech podcasts on Apple and was recently included in the Financial Times list of Top 100 Influential Leaders in Tech and Tech Nation’s 50 most prominent and influential voices in Tech. Abadesi wrote for the Financial Times before joining London’s Tech scene. In 2016 she published her careers advice book, Dream Big Hustle Hard: A Millennial Woman’s Guide to Success in Tech.
Desmond Shawe-Taylor was Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures from 2005 until his retirement in 2021. Before this, he was Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery. As well as publishing extensively, he has been responsible for many exhibitions, in the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere. In 2018 he co-curated the award-winning exhibition, Charles I; King and Collector, at the Royal Academy.
