Making art possible: from Dundee's studios to Art Fund

Behind every gallery you've ever walked into, someone had to transform an initial idea into something real. They found the money, made the case for it and brought the right people together. Rosheen Murray has built a career out of being that person, and it started with a degree in Dundee.

Rosheen is Head of Programme Development at Art Fund, the UK's national charity for art. Art Fund gives grants that help museums and galleries buy works of art and share them with the public, and its National Art Pass gets members into more than 250 museums, galleries and historic houses. Rosheen plays a key role in planning where that support goes and what form it takes: new partnerships, funding opportunities, and research.

From the ticket desk to the leadership team

Rosheen studied at Dundee from 2009 to 2013, on the joint degree then called Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practice. The summer she graduated, she started work at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, selling tickets and looking after visitors.

Five years later she went back, this time as part of the team that raises money for the galleries. By 2020 she was Deputy Head of Development, leading a team of eight and sitting on the organisation's leadership team.

A big part of that job was a huge building project. New galleries were dug out from underneath the National, the landmark gallery on the Mound in Edinburgh, which sits above three busy railway tunnels. The £38.6 million redevelopment doubled the space for Scottish art, and the new galleries opened in September 2023. 

From there she moved to London as Head of Philanthropy at the Design Museum, before joining Art Fund in 2024.

Why art and philosophy?

"My degree in Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practice gave me a really useful grounding in both critical thinking and the practical, process-led nature of making work," Rosheen says. "That combination has stayed with me throughout my career in the cultural sector, particularly in roles where I've supported artists, developed programmes and worked with museums and galleries to turn ideas into something meaningful and deliverable."

Fundraising might sound unrelated to studio work and philosophy. But to persuade someone to back an idea, you have to understand it and explain it to people who have never thought about it before. An art student does that every time they present their work to the class. A philosophy student does it in every essay.

Back to Dundee

Her career has taken her from the smallest arts organisations to the biggest. She was treasurer of Rhubaba, an artist-run gallery and studios in Edinburgh, and started out in fundraising at Edinburgh Art Festival, the UK's largest annual festival of visual art. Today she is one of its trustees.

She has also come back to where it started. Rosheen sits on the Philanthropy Board of V&A Dundee, the design museum on the city's waterfront, which opened in 2018, five years after she graduated.

"This is such a unique course," she says, "and I struggle to think of an example of another that offers such a rich learning environment."