Artistic Director, Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS)

Edith Devaney was senior curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London for over twenty years, where she was responsible for originating and curating many ambitious and groundbreaking exhibitions such as  Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth (2017), also curating its tour to The Broad in Los Angeles;  Abstract Expressionism (2016), also curating its tour to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (2012), curating its tour to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.  

At the Royal Academy, Devany also curated various smaller, but historically important exhibitions including Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch (2021), Phyllida Barlow: cul-de-sac (2019), and Richard Diebenkorn (2015).

In her capacity as head of Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, she worked with many international contemporary artists on both the curation of this annual exhibition and special projects and displays relating to it. Such artists include Roberto Matta, Ed Ruscha, Frank Stella, William Kentridge, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Peter Blake, Cornelia Parker and Michael Craig Martin.

Devaney left the Royal Academy in 2021 to manage the David Hockney Foundation and David Hockney Inc. in Los Angeles for two years.

Independent curatorial projects include Milton Avery at the Royal Academy (2022), the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Fine Art in Connecticut (2022) and the Modern Museum of Art of Fort Worth in Texas (2021); Afro: 1950-1970: From Italy to America and Back (2022) and Arshile Gorky: 1904 – 1948 (2019), both at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice.

She continues to write and lecture widely on art, and to work on independent curatorial projects.  She is a board member of the International Catalogue Raisonné Association (ICRA).

Photo credit: Benedict Johnson