Penelope Curtis

Penelope Curtis (born 1961) is a British art historian and curator. Fom 2015 to 2020 she was the director of Lisbon's Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, and from 2010 to 2015 director of Tate Britain. She is the author of several monographs on sculpture and has written widely at the invitation of contemporary artists.

Early life

Curtis was born in 1961. Her family moved from London in 1967 when her father Adam S. G. Curtis became Professor of Cell Biology at Glasgow University. She studied Modern History at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University from 1979 until 1982. Curtis completed an MA in Modern European Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art where she later gained a PhD on monumental sculpture in Third Republic France after two years' research in Paris.

Career

In 1988, Curtis became exhibitions curator at the new Tate Liverpool. In 1994, she became Head of the Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture at Leeds City Art Gallery. In 1999 she took on the leadership of the newly created Henry Moore Institute and devised an innovative programme combining collections, research and exhibitions. i. Here, Curtis notably supervised the development of the archive collections of sculptors' papers as well as the acquisition of significant works by Rodin, Epstein and Calder, among many others. As well as presenting solo shows of contemporary artists the Institute became known for thematic exhibitions examining material and cultural histories, including 'Bronze', 'The Colour of Sculpture', 'Depth of Field' and 'Wonder'. Curtis also confronted sculpture's links with Fascism in two exhibitions: 'Taking Positions' and 'Scultura Lingua Morta'.

Curtis left the Henry Moore Foundation in 2010 to take on the direction of Tate Britain. She worked with architects Caruso St John on the Millbank project and oversaw the acclaimed new hang, entitled a 'Walk through British Art', and the related Spotlight galleries, each with a different focus on the collection. Other exhibitions drawing on the collection included 'Migrations', 'Kenneth Clark', 'Artist & Empire' and 'Queer British Art'. As Director of Tate Britain Curtis was chair of the Jury of the Turner Prize. She has also served on the Advisory Committee for the Government Art Collection, the Art Commissions Committee for the