The National Gallery has appointed Patrick Elliott as its new Curator of Modern Paintings, a role that signals a decisive shift in how the institution intends to tell the story of Western painting. Elliott will take up the post at the end of March, joining from the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, where he has spent 36 years and most recently served as Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. The position has been created as part of Project Domani, the Gallery’s long-term initiative to extend its collection beyond 1900.
The initiative is to make the Trafalgar Square gallery the single place to experience the whole arc of Western painting, from Giotto through to the present day. It is a bold move for an institution long defined by its Old Masters, and one that places Elliott at the centre of a significant moment of institutional recalibration.
Elliott will focus on shaping the National Gallery’s post-1900 holdings through acquisitions and strategic partnerships—notably with Tate, alongside gifts and long-term loans. The challenge is not simply to add modern works, but to ensure they can stand their ground, visually and intellectually, within one of the world’s most exacting collections.
At the National Galleries of Scotland, Elliott built a reputation for ambitious exhibitions that bridged historical depth and public appeal. He led major retrospectives of figures including Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, M.C. Escher and Salvador Dalí, while also foregrounding contemporary voices such as Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Mona Hatoum and Rachel Whiteread. His most recent project, Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years, was widely praised, earning five-star reviews across the national press.
Alongside monographic shows, Elliott has consistently pursued thematic exhibitions that challenged established narratives. Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage (2019) traced a restless, cross-century lineage, while True to Life (2017) offered the first major survey of British realist painting of the interwar period. This exhibition quietly rewrote assumptions about the era.
Elliott has also left a lasting mark through acquisitions. He played a key role in securing two landmark Surrealist collections for Scotland in the mid-1990s, and later helped bring into the public realm works such as an early Cubist collage by Pablo Picasso and a rare white version of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone (1938). Notably, he was instrumental in acquiring paintings by Dorothea Tanning, Toyen, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo—works by Varo and Toyen entering a UK public collection for the first time. His contemporary acquisitions range from Wangechi Mutu and Jenny Saville to Damien Hirst and Peter Doig.
Speaking about his new role, Elliott described the appointment as both an honour and a challenge. “I’ve visited the National Gallery hundreds of times,” he said. “I love Old Master painting, so this is hallowed ground to me—the one Gallery I always come back to. I’m very aware of the responsibility to collect the very best: modern paintings that can hold their own in a gallery full of Rembrandts and Titians. That’s what makes it exciting.”
Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, welcomed the appointment, noting Elliott’s depth of experience and breadth of vision. “Patrick brings extraordinary knowledge, networks and curatorial judgement to this new role,” he said. “I look forward to working with him as the Gallery enters a new chapter.”
Elliott’s arrival marks more than a staffing change. It signals the National Gallery’s intent to confront the twentieth century and beyond on its own terms, without diluting the authority of its past. If Project Domani succeeds, it will be in no small part because of the kind of curatorial nerve and historical intelligence Elliott has spent a career refining.