David Alston

Please describe yourself and your areas of interest.

I am an arts professional, curator and writer based in Sheffield. My professional career began in Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford before becoming the first Assistant Keeper for the Guild of St George Ruskin Collection newly returned to the city in the early 1980s. I have held senior roles in the City Art Galleries in Sheffield, at the The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, at the millennium project of the Lowry on Salford Quays and then as Arts Director with the Arts Council of Wales, retiring in early 2019. In retirement I have continued to curate exhibitions, to write and contribute to publications on the visual arts and I continue as a Trustee of the Evelyn Williams Trust with its biennial award to artists to develop their work in and through drawing. Evelyn Williams Trust(web link here) I was awarded an M.B.E. in 2020 for services to the arts and at the time wrote: “Art is the politics of the possible. It’s for me a personal recognition on behalf of all I have worked with and for whom I have sought to make possibilities happen. It represents a commitment to realizing the force and necessary role of the arts in public life – I truly believe this to be a necessary role, and if I have enabled a fraction of the possibilities to be realized, then I can feel it’s earned.” This is also something which could be said to inspire my interests in continuing as a Companion of The Guild. My most recent writing on Ruskin was a review of Tom Payne’s performance of Storm Cloud : Observations of the Sky in the on line Dark Mountain project Storm Warning - Dark Mountain (see web link below)

Why did you become a Companion of the Guild?

I became a Companion at the time of the creation of The Ruskin Gallery in Sheffield when it opened in 1985. I'd worked on the Guild's collections and on the lay out of the Gallery. I have continued my interest in Ruskin and the many facets of his thought , writing and art to the present day and have retained my interest in the collection in Sheffield and its public curation and its signal meaning for Sheffield and the network the Guild increasingly represents.

Web links: www.evelynwilliamstrust.co.uk, dark-mountain.net/storm-warning