Louisa Buck
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Louisa Buck is a British art critic and contemporary art correspondent for ''
The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
''. She was a jurist for the 2005
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
. She is also an author or co-author of books on contemporary art market.


Early life and family background

Louisa Buck is the only daughter of the late Sir
Antony Buck Sir Philip Antony Fyson Buck (19 December 1928 – 6 October 2003) was a British Conservative politician. Early life and career The son of Arthur F. Buck, a farmer and agricultural merchant, and his wife Laura (née Fyson), a founder member o ...
MP QC (1926–2003) by his first wife, Judy Grant, from whom he was divorced after 34 years. His marriage to his second wife, Spanish fashion designer, Bienvenida Pérez Blanco, who was 30 years younger than him, ended in scandal, when she admitted adultery with Sir Peter Harding, the British Chief of the Defence Staff, and sold her story to the ''
News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...
'' for £150,000. Prior to this, Sir Antony had seemed "the epitome of middle-ranking orthodox Tory establishment achievement": he was
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
MP for
Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...
for 30 years, and under
Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conserv ...
,
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of Minister (government), government minist ...
for Defence (Royal Navy) (1972–74)."Sir Antony Buck"
''The Guardian'', 11 October 2003 Retrieved 21 March 2006
Louisa Buck said at her father's remembrance service that he had a "lifelong loathing of pomposity, wicked irreverence and dogged loyalty, even when it was against his own interests"."Long Serving Essex MP Remembered"
''East Anglia Daily Times'', 3 April 2004. Retrieved 21 March 2006


Political activity

In August 2014, Buck was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' opposing
Scottish independence Scottish independence ( gd, Neo-eisimeileachd na h-Alba; sco, Scots unthirldom) is the idea of Scotland as a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom, and refers to the political movement that is campaigning to bring it about. S ...
in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.


Career

She writes on contemporary art for a number of different journals, as well as making television appearances. Her first book, ''Moving Targets 2'', gives profiles of the artists, curators, collectors, critics and galleries who contribute to the "best and most challenging art that is being made in Britain". Profiles of artists include
Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
,
Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, Order of the British Empire, CBE, Associate of the Royal Academy, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawi ...
,
Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trin ...
and
Cornelia Parker Cornelia Ann Parker (born 14 July 1956) is an English visual artist, best known for her sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physica ...
; critics include
Adrian Searle Adrian Searle (born 1953 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire) is the chief art critic of ''The Guardian'' newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. Life and career Searle studied at the St ...
, curators, Sir
Nicholas Serota Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, (born 27 April 1946) is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017. Se ...
and dealers,
Jay Jopling Jeremy Michael "Jay" Jopling (born June 1963) is an English art dealer and gallerist. He is the founder of White Cube. Early life Jay Jopling is the son of Michael Jopling, Baron Jopling, a Conservative politician who served for some time as ...
of the
White Cube White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centra ...
gallery. In 2000, she criticised the
Stuckists Stuckism () is an international art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) o ...
artists, "I saw the last Stuckists exhibition and some of the work was just plain cack ... There may be a lot of boring conceptual work but to have a grumpy reactionary movement against it is just daft."Stuckism Press Cuttings
Retrieved 21 March 2006
In 2004, she compiled a report for the Arts Council, ''Market Matters: The dynamics of the contemporary art market''. She quoted
Thomas Hoving Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving (January 15, 1931 – December 10, 2009) was an American museum executive and consultant and the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early life He was born in New York City to Walter Hoving, the head of Ti ...
, former Director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, "Art is sexy! Art is money-sexy! Art is money-sexy-social-climbing-fantastic!", a description she elsewhere says has "never ... seemed more apt"''Evening Standard ES Magazine'', p.15, 2 June 2000 In 2005, she was a member of the Turner Prize jury, which awarded the prize to
Simon Starling Simon Starling (born 1967) is an English conceptual artist and won the Turner Prize in 2005. Early life Simon Starling was born in 1967 in Epsom, Surrey. He studied photography and art at Maidstone College of Art from 1986 to 1987, then at Trent ...
, whose main exhibit ''Shedboatshed'' was a wooden shed he had converted into a boat, sailed down the River Rhine and then turned back into the original shed."One Man and His Boat Shed Sail into a Storm over the Turner"
''The Times'', 6 December 2005. Retrieved 27 March 2006


Personal life

For two years during the 1980s she had a relationship with
George Melly Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for ''The Observer''; he also lectured on art history, with an e ...
and in his will was left his collection of surrealist books and magazines."Melly's bequest to his lovers"
''Daily Record'' 22 October 2007


Bibliography

*''Moving Targets 2: A User's Guide to British Art Now'' (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 2000). *''Owning Art: The Contemporary Art Collector's Handbook'' (co-authored with Judith Greer, London: Cultureshock Media, 2006). *''Commissioning Contemporary Art. A Handbook for Curators, Collectors and Artists'' (co-authored with Daniel McClean, London: Thames & Hudson, 2012).


References


External links


''Market Matters: The dynamics of the contemporary art market'' by Louisa BuckLouisa Buck on being a Turner Prize judge
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buck, Louisa Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British art critics British women curators