In this podcast episode, I sit down with my former colleague at the Royal Collection Trust Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures from 2005-2021. In this episode, we discuss the particular role of royal collectors, and if there is really a motivation for art collecting as a Prince and how that sometimes becomes a form of ‘national’ collecting (if there is such a thing). During my ten years working at the Royal Collection, Desmond and I worked closely on a range of curatorial matters: in particular exhibitions. The First Georgians (2014) was led by Desmond; likewise he led on Charles I at the Royal Academy ( 2018, with Per Rumberg), while I worked on the coeval exhibition on Charles II at The Queen’s Gallery (2017, with Martin Clayton). We also spent a lot of time thinking about ‘palace display’ - we both worked on the improving the appearance, picture hang and arrangement of furniture and objects in the State Apartments at Windsor Castle, all of which came under the broader ‘Future Programme’ project, which was mostly completed just prior to lockdown in March 2020.
3. Desmond Shawe-Taylor