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 BuckMPQC (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 red top tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling English-language newspaper, and at closure still had one ...
'' 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 ...
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. Colch ...
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 from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
,
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister ...
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 ...
'' 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.
...
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, CBE, 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 drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and ...
Cornelia Parker
Cornelia Ann Parker (born 14 July 1956) is an English visual artist, best known for her sculpture and installation art.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.
...
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 Centr ...
gallery.
In 2000, she criticised the
Stuckists
Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art.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, 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, 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 a ...
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).