by Ian Dejardin, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery
One of the (only) good things about getting older is that your friends are getting older also – and often have arrived at positions of distinction, in which they can be a huge help. Something like that happened last year, when someone I’ve known for over twenty years suddenly produced the possibility of the Uffizi Self-Portraits exhibition out of her hat, so to speak, over lunch. And much the same thing happened with our Chinese photographs exhibition.
I was looking for ideas – because I had been approached by the China Now Festival people, and the Trustees felt that it would good if Dulwich could be involved in some way. And suddenly, quite coincidentally, an email arrived from my friend Shiona Airlie, whom I had lost sight of years ago. Shiona was my best friend at University and (or in spite of the fact that) I played the piano -something splashy by Chopin- at her wedding to Mike, and knitted designer blankets and clothes for her son Ben when he was born (that was what I did in those days). She is retired now, through ill-health sadly – but had a marvellously varied and distinguished career in museums, including a stint at the City Art Gallery in Edinburgh.
During that time, she had the exceptionally good fortune to intercept a call from a Chinese source, asking if Edinburgh would be interested in displaying the recently-discovered terracotta warriors from the tomb of the first emperor. Apparently Shiona’s boss at the time didn’t realise the significance of this. Shiona DID; grabbed the project with both hands, and consequently staged the first major exhibition of the terracotta army, in Edinburgh, at least two decades before the British Museum’s recent extravaganza. As a result, Shiona is something of a heroine in China, where, on a recent visit, she was received like a head of state.
Anyway – I went to see her at her home in Scotland, and having caught up with the news, asked if she had any ideas for a Chinese-themed show – and ‘The Lion and the Dragon’ is the result.
Shiona is the biographer of both Reginald Johnson and James Stewart Lockhart, whose amazing collection (from which the photographs come) she had catalogued years ago. She had therefore been consulted when modern prints were made of a selection of this remarkable archive, to be sent, ultimately, as a gift from the people of Scotland to the people of China. A couple of phone-calls later, it was all arranged.
SO – any other old friends of mine out there?
‘The Lion and the Dragon: Photographs from China 1903-1905′ exhibition is at Dulwich Picture Gallery 3 June – 24 August
