Caroline Campbell Appointed First Female Director of National Gallery of Ireland

For the first time in its 158-year history, the National Gallery of Ireland will be led by a woman. The Board of Governors and Guardians has appointed Caroline Campbell as the new director, effective November 2022. Campbell, currently Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery in London since 2018, succeeds Sean Rainbird, who served as director for the past decade. An alumna of the University of Oxford, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York, Campbell has held positions at the Ashmolean Museum and the Courtauld Gallery. She expressed that visiting the National Gallery of Ireland as a teenager inspired her interest in art, and she looks forward to working with the board and staff to make the collection accessible to a wide audience in Ireland and globally through exhibitions, research, and education. Board president Mary Keane highlighted Campbell's extraordinary experience and passion, noting she will be the fourteenth director and the first woman since the gallery opened in 1864. Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery in London, anticipates closer collaboration with the Irish institution.