Julian Spalding

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Julian Spalding |Adrian Brune |William Newton |Ian Sansom

There’s more than a grain of truth in the popular caricature of a curator as a mother hen clucking frantically if anyone gets too near her nest — not that her eggs are about to hatch, let alone run. The recent threat of the British Council to “deaccession” — to put it more bluntly, sell — its 9,000-piece-strong collection of British art has caused a predictable flurry in the curatorial world.

May 8, 2024 | spectator.com.au | Julian Spalding

Nobody claims Beryl Cook was an artistic genius, least of all the artist herself. ‘I think my work lies somewhere between Donald McGill [the saucy postcard artist that George Orwell wrote so lyrically about] and Stanley Spencer,’ she once told me. ‘But I’m sorry to say I’m probably nearer McGill.

May 8, 2024 | spectator.co.uk | Julian Spalding

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Dec 4, 2023 | museumsassociation.org | Julian Spalding

Levelling up – a UK Government programme to create opportunities for everyone across the UK – is a worthy aspiration. But the government hasn’t yet realised that it’s got in the national museums collections a goldmine to help realise this ambition. I spent my professional life in the so-called “regions” – first in Leicester then Durham, and eventually as director of galleries in Sheffield, Manchester and the vast museum service in Glasgow.

Nov 1, 2023 | literaryreview.co.uk | Richard Dorment |Julian Spalding

These are two very different books, and each shines a light on different aspects of the art world. One focuses on a single case in which the author was tangentially involved from the beginning; it reveals much about the power of money in the art world, as well as its opacity and deceptions.