Richard Jefferies (born 1945) was curator of the

Watts Gallery Watts Gallery – Artists' Village is an art gallery in the village of Compton, near Guildford in Surrey. It is dedicated to the work of the Victorian-era painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts. The gallery has been Grade II* listed o ...

for two decades from 1985–2006. His role led to his becoming an acknowledged expert on the Victorian painter and sculptor G. F. Watts. Jefferies's uncle had been chief assistant to Mary Seton Watts in the last ten years of her life, and Richard was born on a visit by his parents to his aunt and uncle at Compton in 1945. He started as Custodian at the Gallery on 1 February 1969 after an earlier discussion with the then Curator,

Wilfrid Blunt Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (17 August 1840 – 10 September 1922), sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodline ...

. He provides the foreword for Hutchings's book on Watts's sculpture.

Portrait of Richard Jefferies

Richard Jefferies agreed to sit for Jon Edgar for a portrait using local Compton clay quarried from the foundations of the Brickfields pottery of Mary Wondrausch. The portrait was unveiled at the re-opening of the

in June 2011 and forms part of the '' Compton Triptych'' unveiled at ''The Human Clay'' exhibition, Lewis Elton Gallery,

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following recommendations in the Robbins Report. The institu ...

in November 2011.

Bibliography

Watts Gallery - A Personal View, Jefferies, R (2006)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferies, Richard British art curators English curators 1945 births Living people