News

Lars Tharp Appointed Director of the Foundling Museum

Announced on Tuesday 15 July 2008.

The Trustees of the Foundling Museum are delighted to announce that Lars Tharp has accepted the position of Director of the Foundling Museum.  Lars takes over from Rhian Harris who has cared for the outstanding collections of art, music, period interiors and social history archives belonging to the childcare charity Coram since 1995.  She has overseen the creation and development of a museum that opened to the public in 2004 and which promotes the story of the Foundling Hospital, the many thousands of children it cared for and the philanthropic vision of artists led by William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel.  Rhian will take over from Diane Lees as Director of the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green in September.

Lars Tharp is a well-known figure in the art world having been a director and auctioneer at Sotheby’s, specialising in ceramics, and running his own consultancy Lars Tharp Ltd involved in devising and organizing a wide range of cultural activities and advising institutions and individuals.  He is best known to the wider public as an expert on the hugely popular BBC 1 programme, The Antiques Road Show, for 21 years.

Lars is an avid Hogarth enthusiast having established the Hogarth Group and has been a great supporter of the Foundling Museum from its inception.  Dr Alan Borg, Chairman of the Trustees of the Foundling Museum said of the appointment “I am delighted to welcome Lars to the Foundling Museum.  Rhian has done a wonderful job in establishing a truly world class Museum and Lars is inheriting a vibrant organisation which is set to have an extremely successful future under his direction.”

Having accepted the Directorship, Lars said “I am thrilled and deeply honoured to have been appointed director of the Foundling Museum - one of London's most wonderful museums.  For several years I have been deeply involved with promoting and discussing the life, works and times of William Hogarth; and for many years before that I was keenly involved in music.  To be asked to join the modern-day successor to one of William Hogarth's very own, very dear projects, one where George Frideric Handel supervised the music, and one so strongly associated with the continuing charitable intentions of its founders, is a conjunction of personal interests which I could only have dreamed of.  The team I'm joining, under its outgoing director, Rhian Harris and her trustees, has already been enormously successful in achieving the recognition this London jewel deserves.  I now hope to add to their efforts by reinforcing its stature at home while drawing it to the further attention of visitors from beyond our shores.  A visitor to the Foundling Museum will gain a unique insight into the way our values - and the lives of our children - have evolved over the last two hundred and seventy years.”

First Foundling Fellows announced

The Foundling Museum announces Damon Albarn, Richard Wentworth and Jacqueline Wilson as the inaugural Foundling Fellows. Read more about this exciting initiative here.

Foundling writer-in-residence appointed

The Foundling Museum, in association with UrbanWords, have recruited a writer-in-residence to work at the museum throughout October and November 2007.

The poet Subhadassi will use the museum and its archives to inspire his own writing, and work with three groups of young people local to the museum, who will create their own writing and imagery based on the stories of the Foundling Museum.

Subhadassi will be keeping a blog throughout his residency and a selection of writing created by the workshop participants will be published on the Foundling Museum website.

The project will end with an early evening event as part of the Arrivals Festival on Thursday 22nd November.

This project is funded by Create KX as part of the Arrivals Festival, celebrating the arrival of the Eurostar at St Pancras.

The Guards march back to the Foundling

Hogarth's famous painting, The March of the Guards to Finchley, returns to the Museum after almost a year away on tour.  It has been a central part of the Tate's celebrated Hogarth retrospective, the first major Hogarth show for many years.  It has been missed by staff, volunteers and visitors alike.

RSVP: contemporary artists at the Foundling

Fifteen contemporary artists have been invited to create works inspired by the art and social history collections at the Foundling.  Their responses range from a wallpaper of children’s names, to a lollipop opera based on Handel’s Foundling Anthem.  The exhibition, in partnership with Commissions East, will open in the autumn 2007.

Rhian Harris, the director, sees the new works as “a powerful, contemporary counterpoint to the Foundling’s historic interiors. They will bring a new audience to the museum, who will be both excited by the exhibition and moved by the stories of the Foundling children and the people who came to their aid.”

Foundling Museum volunteer is community hero

The Foundling's longstanding volunteer, Christine Newall, has been given an award naming her a Community Hero for the King's Cross area. The award was given by One KX, a health and creative arts centre not far from the Museum.

The motivation stated: "[Christine] is an energetic and enthusiastic woman who gives most of her time as a volunteer to cover 14 charities, for which she regularly gives guidance and support to the aged and assists visitors at the Foundling Museum." We could not agree more with the judges' excellent selection!

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