Jacqueline Ridge

Jack Ridge joined the National Galleries of Scotland in 2006. As Director of Conservation and Collection Management she is responsible for collection care strategy at NGS and leading the collection management, art movement and conservation functions.

She has a strong interest in the philosophy of collection care and how this supports access to our national collections, viewing conservation as a “facilitating profession.” Since her appointment at NGS she has been heavily involved with Tate in the development of the ARTIST ROOMS conservation and collections management approach and in developing a sustainable collection care policy for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery redevelopment project Portrait of the Nation. Her publications are wide ranging and include technical studies of paintings from early renaissance to contemporary art, with a particular reference to 19th-century British paintings and the Pre-Raphaelites, sustainable collection care and the legacies of collection care approaches.

Jack has a degree in Chemistry from King’s College London and a formal training in the Conservation of Fine Art from Northumbria University. With over 25 years of experience in both the private and public sector she followed a career path in the US working at Harvard and Worcester Art Museum as a paintings conservator. She returned to the UK to join the specialist team that established the award winning conservation centre at the National Museums, Liverpool. In 1995 she joined Tate in London becoming conservation manager for paintings frames and technical support. She is a fellow of the International Institute for Conservation and is an Advisory Council member at the Hamilton Kerr Institute at Cambridge University.