2011 James White Memorial Lecture: Penelope Curtis

The 2011 Annual Lecture was given by Dr Penelope Curtis, Director of Tate Britain, London under the title Building on History - A New Archaeology, Tate Britain and the Millbank Project at the Dublin City Gallery on Wednesday 9 November 2011. 

The Millbank Project is the current refurbishment of Tate Britain. This project aims to conserve the beautiful fabric of Sidney Smith’s 19th-Century building and carry out a major upgrade to the galleries, enabling Tate to show more of its Collection in conditions suitable for a wider range of art media. The project will remodel and renovate core visitor areas – opening up the stunning domed atrium at the heart of the gallery – while creating much-needed learning studios and public spaces in order to meet growing demand. Dr. Penelope Curtis will explore thinking on reconfiguring a museum of British art alongside a concurrent building project in anticipation of a relaunch in 2013.

Dr Penelope Curtis became the first woman director of Tate Britain in April 2010. The former curator of the Henry Moore Institute since 1999, this is not the first time she has worked within the Tate Family, having been the first exhibitions curator at the Tate Liverpool when it opened in 1988. Dr. Curtis completed her doctorate at the Courtauld Institute of Art and has published extensively on 20th-century British sculpture, on European art and architecture of the inter-war years, and on many contemporary sculptors including Thomas Schütte, Gerard Byrne and Isa Genzken. She is author of Sculpture 1900-1945: After Rodin (OUP, 1999) and Patio and Pavilion: The place of sculpture in Modern Architecture (Ridinghouse, 2007).