In the second week of
February I shall take up the position of director of the National Portrait
Gallery of Australia in Canberra, having spent nearly eleven supremely
enjoyable years living in the United States and serving as curator then senior
curator of paintings and sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art here in
New Haven, Connecticut. There is a great deal to be done between now and then,
and, of course, in the years ahead I doubt I shall have enough time to maintain
this modest bloggy train of thought—such as it has been. By exchanging the old curatorial hat for the novel director’s, I shall in future speak more
directly for my institution and less often for myself, so you, my readers, may
wish from time to time to visit http://portrait.gov.au
to see what we are up to. Looking back over the past five years I am astonished
to discover that I have dispensed several millions of words in this little
spot—and I can thoroughly recommend it as a discipline, and as a form of
recreation. One is occasionally astonished by the wide reach of this medium, by
its capacity to reignite old friendships, and to create new ones. For all of
this I am very grateful, and to all of you I say not goodbye but au revoir—and, of course, Happy New Year!
