Kim Sloan

Kim Sloan, BA (Toronto), PhD (London) is responsible for drawings and watercolours by British and Irish artists from the 1580s to the 1880s and Room 1, Enlightenment: Discovery and Learning in the Eighteenth Century.

In 1986, she curated an exhibition on Alexander Cozens for the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1986, which travelled to the Art Gallery of Ontario with additional works by his son (The Poetry of Landscape: Alexander and John Robert Cozens, Yale, 1986). She worked for four years on the preparation of Sir Brinsley Ford's Grand Tour Archive (www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk) for publication by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (completed by John Ingamells, 1997) before joining the British Museum as curator of British Drawings and Watercolours in 1992.

Her exhibitions at the British Museum have focused on Sir William Hamilton and his collections, on the department's magnificent collection of watercolours by Turner in the Lloyd Bequest and on works by amateurs and drawing masters, which developed ideas from her thesis. She was seconded to be Principal Curator in the creation of the Enlightenment Gallery from 2000 to 2003 and then returned to duties in the Prints and Drawings Department.

Current projects

• Co-Curator: In Search of Classical Greece: Travel Drawings of Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi, 1805-1806, Room 90, 7 February 2013 – 28 April 2013 
• Sloane’s Treasures 
  Principal British Museum Investigator for this AHRC exploratory award to work with the British Library and Natural History Museum planning a large project to ‘reconstruct’ the collection of Sir Hans Sloane
• Heading the British Museum team of curators teaching on a collaborative interdisciplinary MA in Eighteenth Century Studies with King’s College London (www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/c18th)
• Research and entry of information on British drawings and watercolours for the Museum’s database

Previous projects

• Room 1: Enlightenment 
  Principal Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery, (opened 2003)
• Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection, 1996 (Room 5) (joint curator with Ian Jenkins, Greece and Rome)
• J.M.W.Turner: Watercolours from the R.W. Lloyd Bequest, 1998 (Room 90)
• The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniature and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence, 2009, a joint exhibition with the National Galleries of Scotland, joint curator with Stephen Lloyd, Senior Curator, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies

• Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
• Past member of the Advisory Council of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
• Leverhulme Fellow at the National Portrait Gallery, London (September 2007 - January 2008)
• Member of the Advisory Council of the Walpole Society
• Member of the Beckford Society, American and British Societies for Eighteenth Century Studies
• External Examiner for Museum and Art Gallery Studies MA, Leeds University

Recent publications

K. Sloan, ‘Seen through a glass darkly: Dodwell and Pomardi’s drawings and watercolours of Greece’, in John Camp, (ed.), In Search of Greece: Catalogue of an Exhibit of Drawings at the British Museum by Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi from the Collection of the Packard Humanities Institute, Packard Humanities Institute, Los Altos, Ca.: 27-42, 2013

K. Sloan, ‘Sir Hans Sloane’s Pictures and Drawings in Frames and Books of Miniature & painting, designs, &c', in Alison Walker, Arthur MacGregor and Michael Hunter (eds), From Books to Bezoars: Sir Hans Sloane, his collections and their social and colonial milieu (London, British Library Press, forthcoming October 2012)

K. Sloan, ‘Naples, where the landscape painter is most truly in his element’, in A. Weston-Lewis, Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape, National Gallery of Scotland, pp.72-81 (Edinburgh, forthcoming June 2012)

K. Sloan, ‘Surpassing the others in Prospect and Situation: Six Watercolours by John Robert Cozens’ in S. Wilcox and L. Sanchez (eds), The English Prize: The Capture of the Westmorland, an Episode of the Grand Tour, pp.115-25, 186-91 (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, forthcoming May 2012)

K. Sloan, ‘Adorning Aspasia's Closet: Mrs. Delany's Paintings and Drawing’, in M. Laird and A. Weisberg-Roberts, Mrs. Delany and Her Circle, (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2009)

K.Sloan and S. Lloyd, The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniature and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence (Edinburgh and London, National Gallery of Scotland and British Museum Press, 2008)

K. Sloan, ed., European Visions: American Voices (proceedings of conference on John White and the New World, BM, June 2007), British Museum Research Publication no. 172 (printed book; also available online)

K. Sloan, A New World: England's first view of America (London, British Museum Press, 2007)

K. Sloan, Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century, with A. Burnett (London, British Museum Press, 2003)

K. Sloan, A Noble Art: Amateur Artists and Drawing Masters c.1600-1800 (London, British Museum Press, 2000)