Alexander Robert "Sandy" Nairne (born 8 June 1953) is an English historian and curator. From 2002 until February 2015 he was the director of the
National Portrait Gallery, London
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...
in 1974–76.
After a period as an Assistant Curator at the Tate Gallery (1976–80) - during which he additionally worked on international curation projects such as the Irish biennial EVA International - Nairne was appointed Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), a position he held until 1984 - exhibitions included "Brand New York,"
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...
, Mary Miss, "Women's Images of Men," and "About Time."
In 1987, Nairne wrote the television documentary series "State of the Art" for Channel 4. The series and Nairne's accompanying book acts as a follow on to the Robert Hughes series ''
The Shock of the New
''The Shock of the New'' is an eight-part documentary television series about the development of modern art written and presented in 1980 by Robert Hughes for the BBC, in association with Time-Life Films. It was produced by Lorna Pegram, who als ...
'' and provides a critical survey of contemporary visual arts from America and Europe through the 1980s.
In 1988, Nairne was appointed as the director of the Visual Arts Department at the Arts Council. In this capacity, Nairne oversaw the re-invigoration of the British Art Show, the establishing of the Institute of International Visual Arts ( InIVA) as a permanent organisation to promote culturally diverse projects, the furtherance of Percent for Art and the creation of the Curating Contemporary Art Course at the Royal College of Art.
In 1996, Nairne co-edited with Reesa Greenberg and Bruce W. Ferguson the book ''Thinking about Exhibitions'' (1996), a review of international practice in contemporary art exhibitions.
Nairne became Director of Programmes for the Tate Gallery under Nicholas Serota. In this capacity, Nairne was responsible for the restructuring of the Tate's collection administration in preparation for the opening of Tate Modern and the redevelopment of the original Tate Gallery in
Millbank
Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster. Millbank is known as the location of major government offices, Burberry headquarters, the Millb ...
as Tate Britain.
Nairne was responsible for the successful recovery of two late J.M.W. Turner paintings, stolen in Germany in 1994, and put back on display at Tate Britain in early 2003. He negotiated secretly for 8 years on behalf of the Tate to get the two paintings back. His experience is chronicled in his 2011 book, ''Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners''.
Nairne became Director of the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to:
*National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra
*National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred
*National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C.
*National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
in London in 2002. On 12 June 2014 he announced his resignation which took effect in early 2015. He was succeeded by
Nicholas Cullinan
Nicholas Cullinan (born 1977) is an art historian and curator. On 6 January 2015 it was announced that he would be the 12th director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, a post he took up in the spring.
Cullinan was born in Connecticut a ...
2011 Birthday Honours
The Birthday Honours 2011 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 11 June 2011 in the United Kingdom,United Kingdom: New Zealand,Bank of England's Banknote Character Advisory Committee, whose first task would be to decide who should appear on the next £20 banknote.
Personal life
Nairne's wife is the art historian Lisa Tickner, with whom he has a son, the lighting designer Christopher Nairne, and a daughter, the curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. His brother, Andrew Nairne, is Director of
Kettle's Yard Gallery
Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities.
Kettle's Yard galleries, shop and c ...
, Cambridge. His other brother, James Nairne, Andrew's twin, is head of Art at Cranleigh School, Surrey.