Compton Verney Collections Settlement
(CVCS)
Compton Verney Collections Settlement is a charity (charity number 1085810) set up to look after the permanent collections at Compton Verney. CVCS’s charitable objectives are to promote, encourage, maintain, improve and advance education of the public in relation to painting, sculpture and the applied and other visual arts and in relation to the fine arts generally in particular by making the collection available to the public by all appropriate means including display, research, publication and other educational activity.
The CVCS Board use their expertise to provide Compton Verney with advice on the collections including loans, collection care and occasional acquisitions.
Kate Arnold-Forster, Chair
Kate is Director of the University of Reading’s Museums and Special Collections, including three Designated collections, and is also Director of the Museum of English Rural Life, an award-winning social history museum, with a strong track record for innovation in curatorial practice, community engagement, collections-based research and digital engagement.
She has led major programmes of capital re-development and renewal and since 2018 has led Museums Partnership Reading, the largest Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation in Reading, a consortium with the local authority-run Reading Museum. She is former Co-Chair of the University Museums Group and has undertaken extensive research into the sector with a particular interest in the role of university museums and collections in HE teaching, research and academic engagement.
She was a founder member of Women Leaders in Museums and is currently Chair of Compton Verney Collection Settlement.
Kirsten Suenson-Taylor
Kirsten is an accredited Archaeological Conservator, with particular interest in monitoring the long-term efficacy of conservation treatments. She trained at the University of Liverpool and UCL before a career in both museums and commercial archaeology. Kirsten also has many years of experience of working with arts and heritage charities at board level.
This has focussed both on care of collections and collections development as well as sound management, financial and cultural sustainability, and improved visitor experience and engagement. Kirsten has been a trustee of Compton Verney Collection Settlement since 2000.
Janatha Stubbs
Janatha is a Trustee of CVCS and was a Trustee of Compton Verney House Trust. Her involvement in Compton Verney started from its inception when her brother Sir Peter Moores rescued the site in 1993.
Janatha was a consultant and International Board Director for The Littlewoods Organisation between 1982 and 1998.
In 1989, Janatha co-founded The Park of Friendship with her late husband. She is still serving as a Trustee of Inspire – the Foundation for Inclusion.
In 1998, she was awarded the Malta Order of Merit, MOM, for her many charitable works and appointed Member of the British Empire, MBE, in 2003 in recognition for services in the field of disability in Malta.
Through The Janatha Stubbs Foundation established in 1964, Janatha has been supporting children, youths and young adults within the Maltese Islands. In 2023, Janatha was the recipient of the Honour for Cultural Promoters at the National Arts Award Ceremony in Malta.
Dr Caroline Campbell
Dr Caroline Campbell is Director of the National Gallery of Ireland. She was previously Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery in London, a curator at the Ashmolean Museum, Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery and The Jacob Rothschild Head of the Curatorial Department at the National Gallery.
Born in Belfast, Caroline was educated at University College, Oxford and the Courtauld Institute of Art and is a former fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York.
Rica Jones
Rica studied history of art as an undergraduate at the University of Leeds and spent a further two years there as research assistant to Professor Lawrence Gowing before training to be a Conservator of Paintings.
Worked at Manchester Art Gallery, at the Area Museums Service for SE England, then at the Tate Gallery for 27 years, specialising in restoring British art and investigating the techniques of painting from the 16th through the 18th centuries. Published on Tudor and Stuart painting including Holbein, Gheeraerts, Gower, Ketel, Siberechts and Van Dyck; on Georgian painting including Kneller, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Ramsay and Wright of Derby.
Awarded research fellowships at the Yale Center for British Art, at the Getty Grant Program and from the Company of Clothworkers. Since leaving the Tate, now work in the private sector: restoring paintings, doing technical research, lecturing, and consulting on projects such as the restoration of Gainsborough’s Blue Boy.
Christopher Baker
Christopher Baker is the Editor of The Burlington Magazine and an Hon. Professor at Edinburgh University. He served as a Director at the National Galleries of Scotland for ten years and has also worked in curatorial and research roles at Christ Church, Oxford, and the National Gallery in London. His research has focused on 18th and 19th-century British and European art, works on paper, portraiture and the history of collecting and display.
He has curated numerous exhibitions across the U.K. and internationally. Christopher is a member of the Advisory Board of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, The Spoliation Advisory Panel and the Recognition Committee of Museums Galleries Scotland; he is also a Trustee of the Paxton House Trust, Berwickshire.
Antonia Boström
Antonia is an experienced museum professional specializing in European and American sculpture, decorative arts, and craft, with over 40 years of curatorial, exhibition, and management expertise in major British and American art museums. Recognized as a leading sculpture scholar, she has led numerous museum cataloguing, publications, and provenance research projects.
Dr Qin Cao
Dr Qin Cao is the Curator of Chinese Collections at the Oriental Museum, Durham University, responsible to the .
With specialisms in Chinese Bronze Age material culture and numismatics, she is inspired to promote and deepen understanding of China through museum objects, how collections reflect the circumstances and historical contexts of their collecting, and their relevance to the present.
Prior to her joining the Oriental Museum in 2022, Dr Cao was a Senior Curator of China at National Museums Scotland. She served as lead curator for the permanent ‘Exploring East Asia’ gallery’s China displays, and curated the ‘Chinese Oracle Bones’ exhibition (2019).
She has also worked widely across Chinese archaeology, museums and cultural heritage sectors, including the British Museum, Manchester Museum, and UNESCO Bangkok.
She has published for both academic and public audiences, and her first research monograph Weapons in Late Shang (c.1250–1050 BCE) China: Beyond Typology and Ritual was published by Routledge in 2022.
Sarah Tinsley
Sarah has worked in museums and galleries in London spanning a forty-year career, from the British Museum to Tate to the National Portrait Gallery.
Sarah has been a senior leader with a proven record of accomplishment of managing teams to deliver results. An expert in strategic planning, the development of exhibition, national and international programmes for the cultural sector, and with experience of delivering large-scale projects.
Experience in collaborating with artists, in collections care and management, digital programmes and curatorial agendas.
Sarah is creative and collaborative, with a focus on the long-term outcomes for audiences.
Mariam Zulfiqar
Mariam joined Artangel as Director in 2022. Prior to this, Mariam led the National Art Programme at Forestry England where she implemented a new strategic direction, developing partnership projects at the intersection of art, design, architecture, environment, and ecology.
As Deputy Director and Chief Curator at UP Projects, Mariam curated new commissions and oversaw Constellations – an artist development programme for artists working in the public domain, and This is Public Space – a programme of digital commissions that explore the internet as a site for art.
Mariam’s primary area of focus is art in the public domain and as an independent curator, she has commissioned projects for Film and Video Umbrella and Art on the Underground.
Mariam regularly consults for various international public art programmes and has guest lectured at academic institutions in the UK and internationally. In 2013 she was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Scholarship Fund.
