Sandy Nairne

Alexander Robert "Sandy" Nairne (born 8 June 1953) is a British museum director and writer and since 2002 Director of the National Portrait Gallery. The son of a senior civil servant, Nairne studied at University College, Oxford in the early 1970s and rowed for the Oxford University second crew Isis.

Nairne came into contact with Nicholas Serota working at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford in 1974–76 and the two have formed a lifelong professional partnership – one of the most significant in the post-war British art world. After a period as an Assistant Curator at the Tate Gallery (1976–80) Nairne was appointed Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), a position he held until 1984. At the ICA, Nairne was notable for his international exhibitions (Brand New York, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Miss etc) efforts to promote women artists (Women's Images of Men; About Time) and those from Britain's Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities. In 1987, he wrote the television documentary series "State of the Art" for Channel 4. The series and Nairne's accompanying book acts as a follow on to the Robert Hughes series "The Shock of the New" and provides a critical survey of contemporary visual arts from America and Europe through the 1980s. The book has remained a useful reference point for this period.

In 1988, Nairne was appointed as Director of the Visual Arts Department at the Arts Council. In this capacity Nairne oversaw the re-invigoration of the British Art Show, the establishing of the Institute of New International Visual Arts as a permanent organisation to promote culturally diverse projects, the furtherance of Percent for Art and the creation of the Curating Contemporary Art Course at the Royal College of Art.

After a break in 1993 during which he co-edited the book "Thinking about Exhibitions" (1996), a review of international practice in contemporary art exhibitions, Nairne became Director of Programmes for the Tate Gallery under Serota. In this capacity Nairne was responsible for the restructuring of the Tate's collection administration in preparation for the opening of Tate Modern and the redevelopment of the original Tate Gallery in Millbank as Tate Britain. He was also responsible for the successful recovery of two late Turner paintings, stolen in Germany in 1994, and put back on display at Tate Britain in early 2003. Following the debacle of Lars Nittve's short period as Director of Tate Modern, it was widely held that Nairne was being groomed as a successor to Nicholas Serota so it was a surprise to many when it was announced that he was moving to be Director at the National Portrait Gallery in 2002.

Wikipedia review

On 12 February 2006, Nairne was one of several subject experts employed by The Independent newspaper to review the accuracy of several Wikipedia articles, in Nairne's case the punt (boat) article. Nairne has been a regular competitor punting for Dittons Skiff and Punting Club. Wikipedia's page records the following as a summary of Nairne's evaluation:

:"I am impressed by the amount of information on punting; the two key books on punting are mentioned, as are the clubs…I am impressed. It works on the presumption that by and large people will correct things, and I changed one small thing on my own biography."

Personal life

Nairne's partner is the art historian Lisa Tickner with whom he has a son and a daughter. His younger brother Andrew Nairne is also a curator and gallery director. His other younger brother, James Nairne, Andrew's twin, is Head of Art at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire.

External links

* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/prelnpg.asp New Director at the National Portrait Gallery]
* [http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART13116.html Article] from the 24 Hour Museum
* [http://www.amazon.com/s/?search-alias=stripbooks&field-author=Sandy%20Nairne Sandy Naire books] from Amazon.com
* [http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article345103.ece Independent article, 'Wikipedia under the microscope over accuracy']