The Murray Memorial Lecture 2025 with Neil MacGregor, a Fellow of Birkbeck
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
The Murray Bequest was established in 1992 by the art historian Linda Murray, in memory of her husband Peter. Peter Murray was a distinguished historian of Renaissance art who taught at Birkbeck in the 1960s and 1970s and established our undergraduate degree in the discipline.
For the 2025 Murray Memorial Lecture, we are honoured to be welcoming Neil MacGregor, a Fellow of Birkbeck, to deliver a lecture on the topic:
Looking and Loving: 200 years of the National Gallery
Both Peter and Linda Murray were enthusiastic supporters of the National Gallery, which this year celebrates two hundred years since its origins in the collection of the financier and collector, John Julius Angerstein. The first accession, ‘NG1’, was Sebastiano del Piombo’s The Raising of Lazarus (1517-19); the collection now numbers more than 2,600 paintings and other works of art. Please join us as Neil MacGregor, Director of the Gallery between 1987 and 2002, reflects on a unique relationship between the public and their pictures.
Art historian, writer and broadcaster, Neil MacGregor was Editor of The Burlington Magazine, Director of the National Gallery (1987-2002) and of the British Museum (2002-2015), and one of the Founding Directors of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin (2015-2018). In 2021, he held the ‘Chaire du Louvre’ in Paris. He is at present working with the Getty Trust and the CSMVS Museum in Mumbai, on an international project of Sharing Collections.
Contact name:
Allison Deutsch