Kim Sloan

Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1880
Francis Finlay Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery

Drawings and Watercolours by British and Irish artists from 1580s to 1880s and curatorial responsibility for Room 1, Enlightenment: Discovery and Learning in the Eighteenth Century

Department: Prints and Drawings

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8705
Email: ksloan @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Kim Sloan, BA (Toronto), PhD (London) 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 British Museum projects

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/c.18th)

Research and entry of information on British drawings and watercolours for the Museum’s database

Previous British Museum projects

Principal Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery, (opened 2003) Room 1: Enlightenment

Curator of various exhibitions (see Publications, below), including:

• 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 Walpole Society, Beckford Society, American and British Societies for Eighteenth Century Studies

External Examiner for Museum and Art Gallery Studies MA, Leeds University

Publications

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, 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 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, 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)