Advisory Committee

The role of the Advisory Committee on the Government Art Collection is to approve the acquisition and commission of works of art and to advise on the policy and stewardship of the Collection. The Committee meets three times a year, and members are not remunerated.

Current members of the Advisory Committee

  • Nicholas Cullinan – Director, National Portrait Gallery

    Black & White photograph of Nicholas CullinanNicholas Cullinan took up his position as the Director of the National Portrait Gallery in spring 2015, following his role as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Prior to this, from 2007 to 2013, Nicholas was Curator of International Modern Art at Tate Modern where he co-curated an exhibition of Henri Matisse’s cut-outs with Sir Nicholas Serota in 2014. Nicholas received his BA, MA and PhD in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and in 2006–7 he held the Hilla Rebay International Fellowship at the Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao, New York and Venice.

    Nicholas is an Ex Officio member of the Committee.

  • Alex Farquharson – Director, Tate Britain

    Photograph of Alex Faequharson who is standing in front of a brightly coloured artworkAlex Farquharson has been Director, Tate Britain since July 2015. Prior to that, he was the founding Director of Nottingham Contemporary from 2007 to 2015. His background is in contemporary art, as a curator, writer and academic.

    Alex is an Ex Officio member of the Committee.

  • Gabriele Finaldi – Director, National Gallery

    Photograph of Gabriele FinaldiGabriele Finaldi has been Director of the National Gallery since August 2015. He was previously Deputy Director for Collections and Research at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, a position he took up in 2002. Prior to his role at the Prado, he was a curator at the National Gallery between 1992 and 2002, where he was responsible for the later Italian paintings in the collection (Caravaggio to Canaletto) and the Spanish collection (Bermejo to Goya). Finaldi studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he completed his doctorate in 1995 on the 17th-century Spanish painter who worked in Italy, Jusepe de Ribera. He has curated exhibitions in Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the US. He has written catalogues and scholarly articles on Velázquez and Zurbarán, Italian Baroque painting and religious iconography.

    Gabriele is an Ex Officio member of the Committee.

  • Eliza Gluckman – Director, Government Art Collection, DCMS

    Eliza Gluckman has been Director of the Government Art Collection since January 2022. She was Deputy Director and Senior Curator from 2018 overseeing a new direction in public engagement through collaborations and initiating inclusive collecting through Art X-UK. She also conceived the Representation of the People Project, a ten-year commitment to assessing and addressing representation in the Collection. Previously she was Curator of the New Hall Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, the largest collection of works by women in Europe, and a co-founder of A Woman’s Place Project (AWP), where equality provides the contextual backbone to new commissions and projects. She has an MA in Fine Art and Curating Contemporary Art (Royal College of Art). Over the past 20 years she has worked in diverse arts environments including SPACE Studios, the RSA, Parasol Unit, Asia House, Victoria & Albert Museum and National Trust and programmed a central London gallery as part of an independent curatorial partnership, Day+Gluckman, for over a decade. She is a trustee for Block 336, an artist-run space in Brixton, South London and is on the curatorial steering group for Intoart, a studio that works inclusively with adults with learning difficulties.

    Eliza is an Ex Officio member of the Committee.

  • Sir Richard Heaton – Chair

    A photo of a white man standing in what looks like a park; he has grey hair and is wearing glasses, a light blue shirt and a blue jacket.

    Sir Richard Heaton became Warden of Robinson College, the newest college at Cambridge, in 2021, after a career in the civil service. He was Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office from 2012 to 2015, and Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice from 2015 to 2020. Richard is also Chair of Trustees at Koestler Arts, which promotes art and creativity in prisons and places of detention or supervision. He has for many years been an enthusiastic collector of modern and contemporary art.

    Richard joined as Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Government Art Collection in 2023.

  • Nicola Hewer – Director, Cultural Diplomacy, Loans and Visitor Economy, DCMS

    Nicola is Director of Arts, Heritage and Tourism in DCMS. Nicola has previously worked in the Ministry of Justice where she led the Family & Criminal Justice policy directorate, including victims policy and commissioning, criminal and family courts, and criminal and family law.

    Nicola is an Ex Officio member of the Committee.

  • Melanie Keen – Director, Wellcome Collection

    Photograph of Melanie KeenMelanie Keen was appointed Director of Wellcome Collection in June 2019. Prior to this she was Director of Iniva (The Institute of International Visual Arts). As Curator at Iniva from 1997 to 2003, her projects included Soft: Artist as Curator, Janette Parris’ performance Mezzo Soprano?, Farah Bajull’s Untying the Knot, Yinka Shonibare’s Diary of a Victorian Dandy and Simon Tegala’s Anabiosis. She also curated Necessary Journeys, an Arts Council England / BFI collaboration which included artists’ residencies with Jackie Kay, Keith Piper, and susan pui san lok, commissioning a live film score by Courtney Pine presented in the Tate Turbine Hall.

    Formerly, Melanie was a Senior Relationship Manager at Arts Council England and an independent curator and consultant.

    Melanie is an independent member of the Committee.

  • Lisa Kennedy – Curator and Writer

    Lisa Kennedy is a curator, historian and writer who advocates for the inclusion of wider perspectives within collections, artworks and the study of history. Lisa has worked with and across museums, galleries and cultural spaces, where her research interests focus on better understanding the relevance of these spaces to the widest audience possible. Recently, Lisa has worked with Art UK, the Bath & Colonialism Archive Project and University Arts London: Decolonising Arts Institute | Contemporary Art Society to support institutions addressing problematic language alongside accountability frameworks. Lisa’s practice centres on improving access to history, art, and culture from a socially engaged lens, while exploring the role of user experience research.

    Lisa is an independent youth member of the Committee.

  • Ben Luke – Critic and Writer on the Visual Arts

    Photograph of Ben LukeBen Luke is the review editor and podcast host at The Art Newspaper and an art critic at the Evening Standard. He has contributed to numerous art magazines and written catalogue essays for institutions including the Royal Academy and the Whitechapel Gallery. Before becoming a critic he worked for many years in the Tate press office.

    Ben is an independent member of the Committee.

  • Afua Nkansah-Asamoah – Cultural Producer

    Afua is a trustee for the Young Music Makers. Afua previously served on the youth advisory board of Childnet International and was also a young producer at the William Morris Gallery and a member of the Wallace Collection’s Wallace Youth.

    Afua is an independent youth member of the Committee.

  • Mary Ann Prior – Art Curator and Advisor

    Photograph of Mary Ann PriorMary Ann Prior is an Art Curator, Director and Advisor (Private and Corporate) with wide experience of event, exhibition and collection creation and management. She is currently Art Adviser/Curator for Bank of America (EMEA); and an independent researcher. Former roles include Curator to the Wilson Centre for Photography in London; Executive Producer of Eon Productions; Associate Curator of Photographs at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles; Art Advisor/Curator to Pfizer Inc, Bank of America and Camellia PLC. From 2009, she was Executive Director of Oklahoma Contemporary in the US, and its satellite gallery, Marfa Contemporary; as well as Director of Collections at Vulcan Inc, Seattle, a private company owned by the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. At Vulcan, Mary Ann oversaw acquisitions and led high-profile art initiatives including the launch of the inaugural Seattle Art Fair in 2015; and a major touring exhibition ‘Seeing Nature: Landscape Masterworks from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection’.

    Mary Ann is an independent member of the Committee.