Secretary of State reappoints Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) Board Member
Richard Calvocoressi and Leslie Webster have been reappointed by the Culture Secretary as Board Members of RCEWA for four years.
Richard Calvocoressi
Richard Calvocoressi is a Director and Senior Curator of the Gagosian Gallery in London. He was formerly Director of the Henry Moore Foundation (2007-15). From 1987 to 2007 he was Keeper, then Director, of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. From 1979 to 1987 he was a curator at the Tate Gallery, where he was responsible for building up the collections of pre- and postwar European art. He also organised major exhibitions of Jean Tinguely (1982) and Oskar Kokoschka (1986). In Scotland, he acquired important international collections of dada and surrealist art from the estates of Roland Penrose and Gabrielle Keiller and was instrumental in attracting the Anthony d’Offay gift (Artist Rooms) to Edinburgh and London. Richard Calvocoressi has published on various modern and contemporary artists, including Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz, Reg Butler, Lucian Freud, Anselm Kiefer, Yves Klein, Paul Klee, René Magritte, Lee Miller and Henry Moore. He is an Expert Member of the Comité Magritte and a Trustee of the Art Fund. In 2008, he was awarded a CBE for services to the arts, particularly in Scotland. His term will end on the 12th of November 2020.
Leslie Webster
Former Keeper of the Department of Prehistory and Europe, and senior curator of the early medieval collections at the British Museum, she specialises particularly in the Anglo-Saxon and Viking period, on which she publishes and lectures widely. Her latest book is Anglo-Saxon Art: a new History (2012). She is currently Honorary Visiting Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. She co-curated four major exhibitions on early medieval themes at the British Museum, and also co-ordinated a series of exhibitions in five major European museums, as part of the European Science Foundation’s Transformation of the Roman World AD 400-900 Project. She has served as a Trustee and committee member on many professional bodies, including the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Royal Archaeological Institute, and the Society for Medieval Archaeology, where she served as President from 2007-10. Other advisory work has included membership of the former English Heritage Museums and Archives Advisory Panel, the British Academy Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Committee, and the National Heritage Memorial Fund Advisory Panel. She is actively engaged in the Staffordshire Hoard Research Project, and is co-editor of the forthcoming publication of this major Anglo-Saxon find. Her term will end on the 17th of February 2020.
Appointments to The RCEWA are made by the Secretary of State. Roles are unremunerated.
This reappointment has been made in accordance with the Code of Practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for defined political activity in the last five years to be made public. Neither Richard or Leslie have declared any such political activity.