In conversation with Emma Capron
‘Our publics are also the very core of our mission – they are our raison d'être: we work for and with our visitors to interpret the collection…’
- Emma Capron
Image: Emma Capron
Emma Capron is Acting Curator of Early Netherlandish, German, and French Painting at the National Gallery, London, where she recently curated ‘The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance’. A passionate advocate for Renaissance painting, she has over a decade of experience in the art world, both on the art market and in leading American and European museums.
Can you tell us about your background in the arts, and how you ended up working as a curator?
The seeds were sown by my art-loving grandmother who took me on weekly visits to the Musée du Louvre in Paris as a child. These pilgrimages felt at times daunting, at times exhilarating, but clearly something stuck. After an undergraduate degree in Political Science, I switched to art history and never looked back. I moved to London for my MA and while pursuing my PhD I worked at Christie’s for several years. There, I relished the daily interaction with works of art from all periods, experienced the thrill of handling paintings and making discoveries through research. It taught me an incredible amount, well beyond my doctoral specialism. Ultimately, I knew I wanted to work in museums and was fortunate to be awarded fellowships at the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, and most importantly at the Frick Collection where I curated my first exhibition. I met generous and transformative mentors at each stop. I came back to London 3 years ago to join the National Gallery, where I have the huge privilege of looking after its extraordinary collection of Northern Renaissance paintings.
According to you, what does it mean to be a curator today?
Today the term covers a wide range of practices, especially in the contemporary art world. In the context of a museum devoted to the art of the past like the National Gallery, our most essential role is to care for the collection – in the original sense of the word ‘curator’ (which comes from the Latin ‘curare’: ‘to look after’). That involves ensuring proper conservation and display, as well as conducting new research to increase our understanding of the works. Our publics are also the very core of our mission – they are our raison d'être: we work for and with our visitors to interpret the collection, offer fresh perspectives on well-known works while bringing overlooked artists to the fore, interrogate the canon, and most importantly, expand access to the collection.
How would you define your curatorial process?
I do not have a set process, but my daily work on the collection usually provides the starting point for new ideas and projects – be it an exhibition, a redisplay, or a conservation treatment. Whatever the undertaking, the process is always a deeply collaborative one. One of the great privileges of working at the National Gallery is the opportunity to tap into a vast network of colleagues with a range of expertise and approaches: fellow curators, conservators, framers, scientists, art handlers, educators, editors, designers, outside scholars, artists, patrons, visitors, etc. It takes a village!
Have any artists, writers, curators, and other creative thinkers influenced your curatorial practice?
Absolutely, and too many to list! At the Gallery, I really enjoy discussing the collection and how we present it with our Artists in Residence, most recently Ali Cherri and Céline Condorelli, who always bring fresh, invigorating, and often challenging perspectives to our work. As a curator I have a profound admiration for architect Carlo Scarpa’s radical installation of the medieval collection at the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, and by the osmosis between paintings, travertine stone, and silvery light achieved by Louis Khan at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth (Texas). More recently I was very impressed by how the Old Masters from the Frick Collection were made to sing anew through their daring redisplay in Marchel Breuer’s Brutalist masterpiece on Madison Avenue.
Image: The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance. National Gallery.
You recently curated ‘The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance’. Can you tell us a bit about how the exhibition came together?
Like many of our visitors, I have long been fascinated by Quinten Massys’s An Old Woman. It is one of the National Gallery’s most recognisable faces, yet she remains an elusive figure. She gained her nickname ‘The Ugly Duchess’ after she inspired John Tenniel’s much-loved illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). This turned her into a cultural icon, but it also obscured the painting’s vibrant Renaissance context. As a result, although being familiar with the image, few of our visitors knew who painted it, where, and when.
This is where the exhibition comes in: I wanted to leave the world of fairy tale to focus on the painting’s status as a pioneering work of satirical painting. The story also involves a surprising cameo from Leonardo da Vinci: Massys based ‘The Ugly Duchess’ on a grotesque composition by his Italian contemporary and thanks to the generosity of our lenders, the painting is displayed with the corresponding drawings for the first time ever.
Finally, the exhibition aims to examine more broadly what ‘The Ugly Duchess’ reveals of the views cast on women, age, and normative beauty during the Renaissance. Beyond the obvious misogyny, there is an undeniable joy in beholding old women like ‘The Ugly Duchess’ challenge beauty standards, social conventions, and gender expectations. I suspect that the image’s enduring power lies in this freedom and defiance.
What is the most challenging thing about what you do?
We work under a relatively intense exhibition schedule and as a result deadlines for loans negotiations, travel, research, and writing can be very tight.
What kind of experience do you want visitors to have from the exhibition?
I want visitors to fall in love with ‘The Ugly Duchess’!
I also hope that the exhibition demonstrates how the art of the past can inform our understanding of the present. Although we may think that we have come a long way since the sixteenth century, disparaging comments on women’s attempts to conceal the effects of time are still rife today. At a time when the paucity of representation for mature women is deplored, ‘The Ugly Duchess’ confronts us with a defiant older body that refuses to conform, that will neither be removed from sight nor contained. In that sense, the painting echoes current efforts to challenge traditional canons of beauty and invites visitors to question the currency still placed on women’s youth and appearance today. Renaissance art can be as radical and subversive as contemporary art.
What are some memorable things has happened throughout your career?
I can recall a few special encounters. For instance, when I first saw Enguerrand Quarton’s Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Pietà at the Louvre as a postgraduate student: I was completely thunderstruck and instantly knew I wanted to work on this artist (I ended up writing my PhD on him). Another great encounter happened in the archives, when I came across a document that mentioned an unknown late work by the great Sienese painter Simone Martini, suddenly resurrecting a forgotten past before my eyes. Rediscoveries of another type occur in our Conservation studios: there are few things I enjoy more than spending time witnessing the progress of a treatment, seeing the layers of dirty varnish disappear and give way to bright colours and brilliant details that had become indiscernible. This most recently happened when ‘The Ugly Duchess’ was conserved in preparation for the exhibition, revealing the full extent of its fabulous execution.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
To be patient – not my natural inclination.
We like to discover new artists in our interviews. Can you recommend three artists that you think our readers should watch out for or discover this year?
2023 is a very exciting year, so I have got 5 for you!
Carpaccio, Palazzo Ducale, Venice (until June)
Hugo van der Goes, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (until July)
Juan de Pareja, Metropolitan Museum, New York (until July)
Carrie Mae Wims, Barbican Centre, London (opens this summer)
Pesellino, National Gallery (opens this winter)
Do you have any tips for a young person aspiring to work within the art industry?
Spend as much time in museums in galleries as you possibly can. Train your eye, find out what you like. Do not look at art only through a phone or computer screen. Go see everything, permanent collections as well as temporary exhibitions. Venture into periods, geographical areas, media and styles you may not initially think you will be attracted to. You might be surprised and make an encounter that will change the course of your career. And do not hesitate to reach out to curators and other professionals whose work you admire for advice and guidance. Short, sharp, enthusiastic emails. People are willing to help.
Who is Emma Capron outside the ‘office’?
Pretty much the same!
‘The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance’ exhibition is free to visit at the National Gallery until 1 1 June 2023.
