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Sir Francis Watson

5 of 76 portraits by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies

© Lucinda Douglas-Menzies / National Portrait Gallery, London

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Sir Francis Watson

by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
bromide print, 1988
14 7/8 in. x 11 in. (377 mm x 278 mm)
Purchased, 1988
Primary Collection
NPG P371

Sitterback to top

  • Sir Francis Watson (1907-1992), Art historian; Director of the Wallace Collection. Sitter in 1 portrait.

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Events of 1988back to top

Current affairs

A Pan Am jumbo jet is brought down by a bomb over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground. The Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary launched Britain's largest criminal investigation before convicting a Libyan intelligence officer of planting the bomb.

Art and science

Professor Stephen Hawking publishes his popular book on cosmology, A Brief History Of Time.
Damien Hirst and his fellow Goldsmiths students organise the exhibition Freeze in a disused block in the Docklands. The exhibition launched the careers of many of the young British artists (YBAs) associated with Brit Art including Gary Hume, Michael Landy, Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, and Anya Gallaccio.

International

Iraq drops poison gas on the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, killing thousands of civilians. The city was held at the time by Iranian forces and Iraqi Kurdish rebels, although there was initially some debate over which side was responsible for the atrocity. It was the largest-scale chemical attack on civilians in modern times.

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Robert K Sturtz, Maine, USA; Princeton A.B., 1978

30 April 2022, 09:52

Good Morning, For what it's worth and having just noticed this portrait of my dear friend 1973 to his death is tagged for "jewelry," I bought Francis the ring it shows on his left ring finger, on a trip we took to Mexico, in Taxco on a daytrip from Mexico City. Lunch followed in Taxco after a tour of the church. We returned to the Yucatan several times; Francis's museum director and then-recent positions at the Getty Museum, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NYU Institute and other US institutions informed our Mayan travels. BTW at Palenque less than a year after breaking his leg, I took him to the cascading pools about halfway up the hill to the zona archeologica.