Culture Talks: An Audience with Dr Gabriele Finaldi

Attenborough Arts Centre is delighted to welcome Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, in conversation with Professor David Ekserdjian.

In May 2024 the National Gallery launches NG200, a year of celebrations to mark its Bicentenary – 200 years of bringing people and paintings together – and in 2025 the Sainsbury Wing will re-open following major renovations.

Join us to hear more about the past, present and future of one of the world's leading art galleries and put your own questions to Dr Finaldi as the National Gallery enters its third century.

Gabriele Finaldi has been Director of the National Gallery since August 2015. Dr Finaldi was previously Deputy Director for Collections and Research at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, a position he took up in 2002.

Prior to his role at the Prado, he was a curator at the National Gallery between 1992 and 2002 where he was responsible for the later Italian paintings in the collection (Caravaggio to Canaletto) and the Spanish collection (Bermejo to Goya).

Born in London in 1965, Gabriele Finaldi studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art where he completed his doctorate in 1995 on the 17th-century Spanish painter who worked in Italy, Jusepe de Ribera.

He has curated exhibitions in Britain, Spain, Italy, and Belgium and he has written catalogues and scholarly articles on Velázquez and Zurbarán, on Italian Baroque painting, on religious iconography, and on Picasso.

David Ekserdjian is Professor of History of Art and Film at the University of Leicester, and a specialist in the art of the Italian Renaissance. He is a former Trustee of the National Gallery, Tate, Art UK, and Sir John Soane's Museum. He is the author of various books, most recently The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece: Between Icon and Narrative (2021), Albrecht Dürer: Art and Autobiography and Giovan Francesco Caroto: Portrait of a Boy Holding a Drawing (both 2023). He has organised numerous exhibitions, including Bronze (Royal Academy, 2012) and – with Tom Henry – Raphael (National Gallery, 2022).

The evening will also include a complimentary welcome drink, from 5.30pm, and an exclusive preview of our gallery spaces ahead of the opening of the new exhibition.