Art historian and long-time National Trust curator, Alastair Laing passed away on 29 June at the age of 79.
Alastair Laing was Curator of Pictures and Sculptures for the National Trust from 1986 to 2013. One of the highlights of his career was the much-admired In Trust for the Nation exhibition, which ran at the National Gallery during the winter of 1995-96 when many of the trust’s houses were closed. Forming part of the trust’s centenary celebrations, it brought together much of the organization’s finest art including paintings by Rembrandt, Turner and Van Dyck, in what was effectively a mini-history of British collecting tastes through the centuries.
Alastair Laing in 2013 (photo: CODART)
As a CODART member, Laing attended several early congresses and the study trips in the Netherlands and France. Upon his retirement in 2013, he was interviewed for the CODART eZine. He spent much of retirement working on a catalogue raisonné of Boucher’s drawings.
Obituaries have appeared in The Times and on La Tribune de l’Art.