Responsible to: Head of Department
Grade: Grade 10
Salary Range: Competitive salary based on our professorial Pay Scales (starting at £64,606 and going considerably higher based on experience)
Working arrangements: The role is full time, but we will consider requests for flexible working arrangements including potential job shares.
Open date: 30 September 2019
Closing date: 17 January 2020 at 12pm midday
Preferred start date: Successful candidates will ideally be in post by 01 September 2020.
We are seeking an outstanding academic leader and scholar in Spanish and Latin American Art and/or Visual Culture to direct the interdisciplinary Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, a collaborative venture with The Auckland Project.
The Director will be an internationally recognised authority in her/his field who will act as an intellectual entrepreneur, developing academic contacts within Durham University, as well as nationally and internationally, and work in close collaboration with The Auckland Project’s forthcoming Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland – the central impetus for the creation of the Zurbarán Centre – on research, programming, and the development of joint initiatives. The Director will be located in an appropriate academic department of Durham University (Faculty of Arts and Humanities).
Auckland Castle, at the heart of The Auckland Project, is one of the most important working episcopal palaces in Europe, the seat of the Prince Bishops of Durham since the twelfth century. For more than 250 years, Auckland Castle has been home to the internationally significant cycle of masterpieces from the Spanish Golden Age, Jacob and his Twelve Sons by Francisco de Zurbarán, the inspiration for The Zurbarán Centre. Financier Jonathan Ruffer set up Auckland Castle Trust in 2012 (now The Auckland Project) to secure the future of the Zurbaráns in Bishop Auckland.
Durham University formally established the Zurbarán Centre in October 2016. The Centre’s collaboration with the Spanish Gallery will provide an unusual opportunity to combine engagement with connoisseurship of a new permanent collection with scholarship of, particularly, Golden Age art, playing to Durham University’s established strengths in Spanish and Latin American studies. The Centre is an embedded part of Durham University located in Bishop Auckland, where the Director will be primarily based.
This represents an exciting opportunity to further the ambitions of both partner organisations to become the leading home for the study and appreciation of Spanish and Latin American art. Over the past three years, the Centre has fostered research in Spanish and Latin American art in a global context, with a special focus on the art of Medieval Spain, the Spanish Golden Age, Mexican national art, the 19th-century history of collecting, and Spanish and Latin American cinema and photography.
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