Richard Johns

Profile

Curator of Prints & Drawings

With around 70,000 items, the Museum’s collection of prints and drawings is one of the largest in the UK, attracting visitors from around the world. It is especially rich in material relating to travel, empire and all aspects of maritime art and history, where work by well-known artists can be found alongside that of amateur draftsmen.

My work involves researching and promoting the collection, with the aim of making it relevant and accessible both to specialist researchers and to the wider public. From day-to-day, this includes responding to enquiries about specific works, contributing to longer term exhibition and cataloguing projects, and working with the Museum’s specialist paper conservators to ensure that the collection remains safe for future generations.

The Museum is an ideal place to explore the cultural intersections of art, science and history. One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is working, as part of the art team, alongside other curators and conservators, whose collections and specialisms often seem rather exotic. It is also a privilege to be surrounded by so many important historical buildings, such as the Queen’s House, the Royal Observatory and the nearby Royal Naval Hospital.

The questions I'm asked most often

I am often asked why more of the Museum’s prints and drawings are not on display. Although many of the galleries include a rotating display of works on paper, most of the collection is kept in a specially designed store. Paper-based objects tend be fragile and are particularly susceptible to damage from light and other environmental factors. Because of this, prints and drawings can usually only be displayed for relatively short periods, and then only under carefully managed conditions (that’s one reason why the lighting in some of the Museum’s galleries is kept relatively low).

Historically, too, drawings were typically kept in albums and were rarely intended to be hung on a wall. A growing section of the collection can now be browsed online but visitors and researchers with a particular interest in the collection are very welcome to arrange a visit to see specific items at first hand.

Academic profile

Curator of Prints & Drawings

Biography

Before coming to the NMM in 2008, I was a research fellow at Homerton College, Cambridge. Prior to that I studied at the University of York and the Courtauld Institute, and have taught at several universities.

Collections responsible for

Prints and drawings

Areas of research and interest

In broad terms, my research interests encompass all aspects of British art and visual culture from the 17th and early 18th centuries. More specifically, I have a keen interest in grand-scale decorative history painting (and its related preparatory drawings and oil sketches) by the likes of James Thornhill and his foreign counterparts Antonio Verrio and Louis Laguerre. Other recent and ongoing research includes the patronage of the first duke and duchess of Marlborough, the early history of landscape in England, and the role of drawing and printmaking among artists and collectors of the 17th century.

Selected publications

• ‘Framing Robert Aggas: the Painter-Stainers’ Company and the “English School of Painters”’, Art History 31:3 (June 2008)
• ‘“An Air of Grandeur & Modesty”: the painted dome of St Paul’s Cathedral’, Eighteenth-Century Studies (forthcoming)
• ‘Julius Caesar as hero and villain: the painted hall at Chatsworth’ (forthcoming)
• Catalogue of 154 oil paintings from public collections in East Anglia for the National Inventory of Continental European (NICE) Paintings (1200–1900), an online database hosted by the Visual Arts Data Service since 2006: http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/NIRP/

I also regularly contribute book and exhibition reviews to various journals, including British Art Journal, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Visual Culture in Britain and Winterthur Portfolio.

Recent conference and research papers

• ‘The Sky’s the Limit: ceiling painting and kingship in late seventeenth-century England’, Art and Politics in Early Modern England, University of York, 14 May 2008
• ‘The City Triumphant: arms, allegory and the body politic in eighteenth-century London’, BSECS annual conference, St Hugh’s College, Oxford, 3-5 January 2008
• ‘Hogarth’s Paul before Felix revisited’, Hogarth: New Perspectives symposium, Tate Britain, London, 26 April 2007
• ‘“Those Wilder Sorts of Painting”: the painted staircase in the age of James Thornhill’, ASECS annual meeting, Atlanta, GA, 22-25 March 2007
• ‘“A Reflection to the Publick”: James Thornhill’s painted intervention at Greenwich’, Oxford Architectural History Seminar, 5 February 2007
• ‘“The Head is put where the Feet should be”: Caesar as hero and anti-hero at Chatsworth’, Ancient History Seminar, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge, 29 January 2007; and Représentations de Jules César à l'époque moderne, Université Laval, Quebec, 4-6 October 2007
• ‘“Maritime Affairs”: James Thornhill and the art of navigation’, Restoration to Reform Seminar, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 30 October 2006
• ‘“A View from the Top”: St Paul’s Cathedral and the eighteenth-century city’, Literary London Annual Conference, Greenwich University, 13-14 July 2006