In Conversation With…Adrian Locke, Chief Curator of the Royal Academy of Arts, and curator of upcoming exhibition ‘Kerry James Marshall: The Histories’

Adrian waited until he was 28 years old before attending university: “I sort of had a past life, but I was living in Brazil, where my parents were originally from, and came back to England to study at the University of Essex. I read Latin American Studies and eventually focused on art history, specifically Latin American art history.” Adrian stayed at the University of Essex where he secured funding for a Master’s and a PhD: “I was torn between a degree in politics and art history but felt that art history could tell a much larger story.” Whilst studying for his doctorate, he gained curatorial experience working at the university gallery: “In 2001, the day I handed in my PhD thesis, the Royal Academy of Arts rang me and asked if I would be interested in working on their upcoming Aztecs exhibition. The only other suitably qualified person was my wife, but she was finishing her studies! Most of my early career was at that time focused on the relationship between European and Native art in Mexico and Peru.”

Adrian’s has spent the past 24 years at the Academy where he is now Chief Curator: “I was hooked. It was an incredible experience to work with this organisation, alongside these people, on a show that became historic—and to do it again and again. It doesn’t get any better than that.” He became a permanent member of staff in 2004. Today he is part of a team of eight curators and assistant curators. When asked about the highpoints of his career, he says he is a ‘jack of all trades and master of none’: “There have been many highpoints. I have worked on an incredible range of exhibitions, initially with a focus on non-western art and eventually on modern and contemporary art shows, most recently Kerry James Marshall.”

The Kerry James Marshall: The Histories exhibition, opening on 21 September, had been in development since 2021: “While there had been previous internal discussions, the idea came to fruition when freelance curator Mark Godfrey suggested we host the artist’s first large-scale exhibition in London since 2005. Though well exhibited in the States, only a handful of Kerry’s paintings are held in public collections in Europe. The upcoming show, also traveling to the Kunsthalle Zurich, and the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, will include 72 paintings, 19 of which are unstretched canvases and have been rarely displayed together. It has been an incredible adventure, and we have gathered a significant group of Marshall’s work over the last 40 years of his career.”

On working with a living artist, Adrian comments: “As with a lot of important contemporary artists, they have a very strong group of supporters, so there is a groundswell of support from the private collectors and the museums.” When asked about his favorite artwork he says: “Kerry had done a suite of eight new works that will be debuted in London. However, my favorites are paintings that date from the 1990s and refer to the Middle Passage, the enforced movement of enslaved Black Africans across the Atlantic, from West coast of Africa to the Americas. As with most of his paintings, they’re very strong and have a rich and complex context and use of iconography.”

Since the pandemic, art institutions in the UK have experienced diminished financial resources in addition to increased costs. Adrian admits London museums and galleries are suffering from a “double whammy” though he remains optimistic about their mission: “The RA has raised more money for this show than any other in the museum’s history. The funding landscape has changed: commercial sponsorship is much harder to get and philanthropy from organisations like the Huo Family Foundation have become a crucial source of support. We still believe there is value in these exhibitions and showing the work of artists like Kerry who is a great narrator of American life; he’s not only creating his own style but also reinventing the history of painting.”

HFF is supporting Kerry James Marshall: The Histories with a grant of £150,000.