Rab MacGibbon

Rab MacGibbon

Cross-Collections Curator

Job description

I curate Collections projects in all periods and media, including touring exhibitions. Within the London Gallery, I curate temporary displays, generate interpretation for the permanent displays and website and write Gallery publications. I research the Collection, provide advice on acquisitions and contribute to the Gallery’s public programmes and external partnerships.

Biography

I joined the National Portrait Gallery in 2005, having studied BA and MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Prior to joining the Gallery I worked for the National Gallery and British Council. Prior to my current role, I was Curator, 17th and 18th Century Collections, a year as 17th Century Curator (maternity leave cover), and Research Assistant for the Gallery catalogue Later Stuart Portraits, 1685-1714.  I was Research and Engagement Fellow at the Parliamentary Art Collection on secondment (2020-22). Exhibition work includes Icons & Identities (2020-23), Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver (2019), The Lost Prince: The Life & Death of Henry Stuart (2012).

Gallery and touring displays include Exposed: the Naked Portrait, Simon Schama’s Face of BritainNature’s Champions, Royal: then & nowLife, Death and Memory,  Picturing Friendship, Creative Connections,  Henry Irvingthe ChartistsGilbert & SullivanCaptain ScottLeslie Stephen, TennysonWildeEdwin LandseerFlorence NightingaleWilliam Holman HuntNile explorersCharles Ricketts & Charles ShannonWilliam DobsonLady Jane GreyTreason, Plots and MurderFavourites: Art and Power, Augustus John, Charles IRoyal Society.  

Research interests

My research has particularly focused on seventeenth and eighteenth century portrait practice and wider cultural production with particular engagement with the early Stuart court and political portraits. I have a wider interest in artist biographies from Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver to contemporary artists.

Recent Publications

National Portrait Gallery: The Collection (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2023) 

Icons & Identities, ed. by Rab MacGibbon and Tanya Bentley (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2021)

Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver, ed. by Catharine MacLeod (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2019)

The Lost Prince: The Life & Death of Henry Stuart, ed. by Catharine MacLeod (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2012)