I feel that storytelling is possibly the most important aspect of a curator’s job. We can’t expect our audiences to care about our collections simply because they exist, we have to make them meaningful and relevant to people’s lives. A curator has the ability not only to share knowledge but to act as a mediator and facilitator, bringing history to life by connecting the past with the present. I have tried to hold this idea at the core of my work, and am continually experimenting with new ways to achieve this. CODART has always provided a wonderful context in which to test ideas amongst supportive, and intellectually-curious colleagues.

I grew up near Manchester and would spend time visiting the city’s incredible galleries and museums. When I found out that working in museums was a ‘real career’, I knew this was what I wanted to do. When I began my History of Art degree, I was interested in everything, in all kinds of artistic production. By the time I left, however, I was more interested in contemporary art. I undertook a postgraduate degree at the Courtauld, where I wrote my thesis on the display of contemporary art in historic contexts, something I would later pick up again when working at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

My passion for Dutch and Flemish painting took hold when I started working at the National Gallery as a Curatorial Trainee. The unique trainee scheme combined six months of intensive training at the National Gallery alongside the opportunity to lead a project at another UK institution. I was completely captivated by the collections at the National Gallery, and had the opportunity to meet brilliant colleagues, including Betsy Wieseman, who remains a friend and mentor to this day. Thereafter, I moved to work with the collections of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on a project to rehang their Baroque galleries. This much-loved museum at the heart of Birmingham – one of the UK’s most culturally diverse cities – underscored to me the importance of making art feel relevant and accessible to the communities museums serve.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Girl at a Window, 1645
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

As a lover of Dutch and Flemish painting, landing an Assistant Curator role at Dulwich Picture Gallery felt like a dream come true. Designed by renowned architect Sir John Soane, Dulwich Picture Gallery holds a special place as England’s first purpose-built public art gallery. Founded in 1811, and opened to the public in 1817, it pre-dates the National Gallery by 13 years. The ‘public’ aspect was especially important to the Gallery’s founders, in particular they wanted the collection to serve as inspiration for artists who might not otherwise have access to private collections. The collection very-much embodies British taste at the end of the eighteenth-century – the time when our founders were collecting – and Dutch and Flemish paintings naturally form a significant portion of the collection. Alongside works by Rembrandt, Dou, Teniers, Van Dyck and Hobbema, we have a large collection of sketches by Peter Paul Rubens. I suspect our founders collected these precisely because they knew how valuable they could be for practicing artists. One of my first tasks upon starting in my role at Dulwich was to support Ellinoor Bergvelt with the completion of the Dutch and Flemish Catalogue, published in 2016. This project not only offered me the opportunity for total immersion in the Dutch and Flemish paintings, it was also the launchpad that threw me into the wonderful world of CODART. Since my first congress in Bruges in 2018 – a complete whirlwind from which I remember very little, especially after the trauma of being asked to speak at the congress dinner – I have continued to benefit from the knowledge, wisdom and friendship of the wonderful CODART members.

It is probably a testament to my love of the Dulwich collection that I am still there over nine years later. One of my favorite projects at the Gallery was working on the exhibition Rembrandt’s Light alongside our Director, Jennifer Scott, with support from colleagues from the Rembrandt House Museum. The show dissected Rembrandt’s fascination with light, tying this to the unique studio environment he created for himself and his pupils. The show offered the chance to spotlight – literally and metaphorically – one of the most iconic artworks in our collection, Rembrandt’s Girl at a Window from 1645, an ambiguous and enticing picture that demonstrates the artist’s skill at crafting light and show to create the illusion of three-dimensionality.

Being a smaller art museum has perhaps allowed us to be more experimental and responsive in how we display our collection. We have an ongoing strand of our program called ‘Unlocking Paintings’: this is a series of displays that enables people to make personal connections with the artworks at Dulwich Picture Gallery. The series explores new ways to tell the stories of the collection, which are responsive and relevant to contemporary experience. Displays are centered around three key themes: pioneering new research, championing contemporary painters and amplifying local voices within the collection.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Venus, Mars and Cupid, ca. 1630-1635 and Anthony Daley: Son of Rubens, 2022 at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

We have developed some amazing projects under this umbrella, and I have especially loved working with contemporary artists to gain new insights on our collection. For Anthony Daley: Son of Rubens, abstract painter Daley responded to our painting of Venus, Mars and Cupid by Peter Paul Rubens, touching on contemporary ideas of conflict and racialized notions of beauty. I am very excited for the show we are currently working on with artist Somaya Critchlow, titled The Chamber, which opens in February 2025. Critchlow is looking closely at our collection to probe how historic art — telling familiar yet epic stories of myth and religion — can mask complex power structures.

We have also experimented with new research methodologies that aim to recenter our audiences. In particular, we’re especially mindful that we listen and respond to our local audiences in South London. Dulwich Picture Gallery borders three London boroughs – Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham – which are some of the capital’s most populous and culturally diverse areas. For our recent project, The Past for the Present, the Gallery worked with the social research organization Shortwork to train and recruit 9 members of our local community in Participatory Action Research (PAR) techniques. PAR refers to a family of methods that seek to put those most affected by a particular topic or issue upfront in the research process as community or peer researchers. At Dulwich, the community researcher team worked collaboratively to develop a framework of activities, exploring the central research question ‘How can Dulwich Picture Gallery be more relevant to our lives today’?

ORACLES: by Yara + Davina, 2024 at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

One outcome of this research – and one of the funnest projects I have worked on at Dulwich – was ORACLES, an installation produced by artists Yara + Davina. The Gallery commissioned the artists to develop the project, after audiences reflected that they wanted to see more dialogue-based displays, with space to explore ideas collectively. Yara + Davina’s artwork transformed a room in the Gallery into an Oracle Card reading room, inviting visitors to seek advice and wisdom from a bespoke set of oracle cards inspired by Dulwich Picture Gallery’s collection. The artists worked with local groups to explore what paintings from the collection would mean if they were oracle cards. The differences in interpretation and how individuals connected with our artworks was profound, and I loved the opportunity to be a bit more playful with our artworks in order to engender this personal connection.

In the future, I am looking forward to new projects that continue to break down barriers and offer alternative routes to engaging with art. As part of our ‘Open Art’ project we are looking to connect inside and outside through a sculpture garden. As with ‘Unlocking Paintings’ we want to create links between contemporary sculpture and our collection, prompting visitors to approach our historic paintings from new angles. We recently acquired our first work for the collection in over a decade, ‘Bronze Oak Grove’ by Rob and Nick Carter. Consisting of nine oak tree stumps cast in Bronze, the work brings to life a pen and ink drawing by Jacob de Gheyn II, and connects to seventeenth century explorations of the natural world. We have also borrowed Yinka Shonibare CBE RA’s Material (SG) IV as a loan for our garden. Inspired by a ship’s sail in the wind, the work can be viewed as a contemporary interpretation of the Dutch seascapes – such as those by the Van de Velde – which showed man made boats at the mercy of the elements. Emblazoned with Shonibare’s signature Dutch wax batik fabric, Shonibare has described this textile – inspired by Indonesian designs, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to colonies in West Africa – as the ‘perfect metaphor for multi-layered identities.’ Adorned with this iconic design, the sculpture becomes a powerful symbol of the movement of people and global interconnectivity over time.

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (1962), Material (SG) IV, 2023 at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

There are so many exciting projects on the horizon, and I am excited for the continued possibility to connect with artists, audiences and curators over the art I love. On this journey there will, of course, be things that don’t go to plan, but the possibility to test, experiment, listen and have fun, is invaluable.

Helen Hillyard is Head of Collection at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. She has been a member of CODART since 2016.