Portrait Gallery Director Announced - National Galleries of Scotland

NEW DIRECTOR OF SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
ANNOUNCED
The Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland announced today, 15 May 2012, the
appointment of Christopher Baker as the new Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in
Edinburgh. He will take up his position at the Portrait Gallery on 1 August 2012. His selection
followed an international search led by the recruitment company Odgers Berndtson.
Mr Baker has been Deputy Director of the Scottish National Gallery since 2003 and was previously
Curator at Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford. He enjoys an international reputation as a
scholar-curator and has organised some of the Scottish National Gallery’s most successful
exhibitions, such as The Discovery of Spain and Turner and Italy (both 2009), and written the
Gallery’s permanent collection catalogue of English Drawings and Watercolours 1600-1900 (2011).
He sits on advisory boards at the University of St Andrews and the National Gallery, London, and
has contributed to numerous art historical publications, including The Burlington Magazine.
John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland said: “This vacancy was hotly
contested by a strong field of candidates from this country and from abroad. Christopher Baker
has an extremely impressive record as a curator and a manager who has combined scholarly
depth with a broad popular appeal in his work for the Galleries. We are delighted that he has
emerged as the outstanding leader to build on the recent successes of the newly-re-opened
Portrait Gallery.”
Ben Thomson, Chairman of the Trustees of NGS said: “It is a hard act for anyone to follow James
Holloway who transformed the Portrait Gallery and made it into one of Scotland’s best-loved
cultural institutions. The Board is confident that Christopher will be an inspiring new leader for the
Gallery who with freshness and vigour will be able to build on our aspirations for the Scottish
National Portrait Gallery to be at the centre of Scotland’s heritage.”
In his current position, Mr Baker works with colleagues across the NGS on many aspects of the
management of the National Gallery and the care and presentation of its outstanding collection and
the buildings that house it. He has had specific responsibility for the Gallery’s Drawings and Print
Collection and the promotion of it through research and displays.

Commenting on his new position, Christopher Baker said: “The Scottish National Portrait Gallery
has been brilliantly re-developed and it is a privilege to be given the opportunity to work with a
much-admired national institution and such an outstanding and wide-ranging collection on the next
stage of its development.”
For further information please contact the National Galleries of Scotland Press Office on 0131 624
6325/6247/6314/6322 or pressinfo@nationalgalleries.org.
-ENDS-
Notes to Editors:
Career of Christopher Baker
1985 – 1988 B.A., History/History of Art, 2i, University of York.
1988 – 1989 Dip. A.G.M.S. Post-Graduate Diploma (Art Gallery and
Museum Studies), University of Manchester.1989 – 1995
Researcher, The National Gallery, London.
Co-author of The Complete Illustrated Catalogue of the
National Gallery’s Collection (1995).
1995 – 1997 Part-time Lecturer, Birkbeck College, London University.
1997 – 2003 Curator, Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford.
Co-editor of Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe,
c.1500-1800 (2003).
2003 – 2012 Deputy Director and Chief Curator, The Scottish National
Gallery.
Visiting Fellow, The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven,
U.S. (2005)
Author of J.M.W.Turner: The Vaughan Bequest (2006)