Desmond Shawe-Taylor is the new Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures. He is succeeded as director of Dulwich Picture Gallery by the curator, Ian Dejardin

Her Majesty The Queen has appointed Desmond Shawe-Taylor to the position of Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures. He will succeed Christopher Lloyd on Mr Lloyd’s retirement in July. The Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures is a senior member of the Royal Collection, one of the five departments of the Royal Household. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, who is 49, has been director of Dulwich Picture Gallery since 1996. He has overseen the major refurbishment of the Gallery, which was inaugurated by The Queen in 2000. He is a graduate of University College, Oxford, where he was awarded a First in English. He obtained a further degree in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and from 1979 to 1996 taught in the History of Art Department at the University of Nottingham. Mr Shawe-Taylor has written on a wide range of subjects, including Georgian portraiture, the paintings collection at Dulwich and numerous exhibition catalogues. The Royal Collection, one of the largest and most important art collections in the world, is held in trust by The Queen as Sovereign for her successors and the Nation. The paintings comprise one of the best known and most significant elements of the Collection. Working to the Director of the Royal Collection, the Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures has overall curatorial responsibility for some 7,000 oil paintings and 3,000 miniatures.

Ian Dejardin, who is 49, has been curator of Dulwich Picture Gallery since 1998, responsible for the care of collections of paintings, furniture and works on paper and for the mounting of three exhibitions a year. He was part of the team that oversaw the major refurbishment of the Gallery, which was reopened by the Queen in 2000. Ian studied at Edinburgh University where he graduated with a first class degree in history of art. He began his professional career at the Royal Academy, and then was appointed as senior curator and subsequently Head of the Historic Team for the London Region of English Heritage before becoming the curator at Dulwich. Dulwich Picture Gallery is England’s oldest public art gallery, founded in 1811. The magnificent collection of Old Master paintings includes works by Rembrandt, Poussin, Claude, Rubens, Murillo, Van Dyck, Watteau, Gainsborough and many others.

CODART congratulates these members of our organization on their outstanding new positions.