When, in 1992, Rosalind Savill announced that she was going to apply for the directorship of the Wallace Collection museum in London, reactions divided roughly in two. One group would smile wistfully and say how much they loved the Wallace, because no one ever went there. The second group would point out that Savill, who has died aged 73 of cancer, was variously unqualified for the job. “You’ve been here too long, you’re a woman and you have an illegitimate child,” was the terse summing up of one senior colleague.
This reflected the world of curating as it was 30 years ago. Savill had cut her professional teeth at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the early 1970s. The V&A, then, was modelled on the hierarchical lines of the British army.
