Professor Anita Taylor

Anita Taylor is Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee. She is the founding Director of the foremost annual drawing exhibition in the UK, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize [since 1994], and Drawing Projects UK, a public-facing initiative dedicated to drawing [since 2009]. After graduating from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art [1987], she became Artist-in-Residence at Durham Cathedral [1987-88], then Cheltenham Fellow in Painting [1988-89].

She has extensive teaching, research, peer and expert review, and her academic leadership experience includes: Executive Dean of Bath School of Art and Design at Bath Spa University; Director & Chief Executive Officer, National Art School in Sydney, Australia; Dean of Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London [UAL]; Director, The Research Centre for Drawing at UAL; and Vice Principal of Wimbledon School of Art.

Panel memberships include: Higher Education Funding Councils of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales Research Assessment Exercise RAE2008, Art & Design Panel; Hong Kong Research Assessment Exercise RAE2014, Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design Panel; and Research Excellence Framework REF2021, member of Sub-Panel 32 Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory.

She is a Trustee and the current Chair of the UK Council for Higher Education in Art and Design, and a Trustee of Stroud Valley Arts.

Recent solo exhibitions include: 

• Witness, Young Gallery, Salisbury [2018]; DRAWN, The Customs House, South Shields [2017]
• William Wright Artists Projects [Sydney 2014]
• The Drawing Room, Sydney [2011]; Peter Pinson Gallery, Sydney [2009]
• The Drawing Gallery [2009, 2004]

Her drawings have been included in recent exhibitions at Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London (2019); The Global Centre for Drawing, Langford120, Melbourne [2018, 2013, 2011]; Jerwood Gallery [2016, 2014]; and V&A London [2009].

Awards include the Malvern Award for Drawing [1993]; Drawing Award, Hunting Art Prizes 1999; and First Prize, Hunting Art Prizes 2000, and her work is held in public collections, including the V&A and Jerwood Foundation. She has curated exhibitions of drawing, including Drawing Breath [London & international tour 2006-08] and Drawn Together for Jerwood Gallery [2014]; and organised solo presentations by Barbara Walker [Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, 2018-19], Lyndal Jones [The Holburne, Bath, 2014], Sheela Gowda [Sydney, 2010], and the exhibition programmes at Drawing Projects UK since 2015.

Co-author of Drawing [Cassell Illustrated, first published 2003], she has written on drawing and creative practice for The Guardian/Observer, Craft Arts International, Guardian Culture Professionals Network, and Garageland, and interviews with her are featured in After Nyne [2018], Interalia [2016]; Studio International [2014]; Times Higher Education [2013]; and Artist’s Lives, Oral History Collection, National Life Stories in the British Library Sound Archive.