In this Research and Academic Program lecture, Gabriele Finaldi (National Gallery, London / Class of 1974 Short-Term Fellow), director of the National Gallery, London, describes the museum’s history and the thinking behind it reset for its third century, in 2025 and beyond. The National Gallery, London, was founded in 1824 as “a collection of pictures for the use of the public,” as the sign on the door said. Initially just thirty-eight paintings formed the national collection, and it was housed in a town house on Pall Mall. In 1838, the institution settled in a new building on Trafalgar Square and little by little it has grown to be the celebrated and prestigious art gallery it is today holding a selection of masterpieces from Cimabue to Rembrandt and from Leonardo da Vinci to Monet. It has become one of the most visited museums in the world. The occasion of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary in 2024 provided the opportunity to refurbish the Sainsbury Wing (under the direction of the architect Annabelle Selldorf) and to re-present its entire collection. 

Sir Gabriele Finaldi has been Director of the National Gallery, London, since August 2015. He was previously Deputy Director for Collections and Research at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, a position he took up in 2002. Prior to his role at the Prado, he was a curator at the National Gallery between 1992 and 2002, where he was responsible for the later Italian paintings in the collection (Caravaggio to Canaletto) and the Spanish collection (Bermejo to Goya). Finaldi studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he completed his doctorate in 1995 on the seventeenth-century Spanish painter who worked in Italy, Jusepe de Ribera. He has curated exhibitions in Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the US. He has written catalogues and scholarly articles on Velázquez and Zurbarán, Italian Baroque painting, and religious iconography.

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event.

Image: The National Gallery facade lit up to mark its 200th birthday on May 10, 2024. Photo: © The National Gallery, London