Pih joins the Harewood House Trust executive team from Tate Liverpool. In this new role, he will lead the charity’s award-winning exhibition programme, and care for the museum’s outstanding collection of painting, decorative interiors, furniture and porcelain. His work will further Harewood’s purpose to make heritage relevant, using the collections and landscape to help shape a more sustainable world, unlock people’s creativity and enrich lives.

Over the past five years, Harewood has received universal recognition for its innovative programming including the Harewood Biennial alongside its new Craft Spotlight and Open History series addressing the urgent issues of our time from equality, diversity and inclusion, and social and environmental issues prevalent in society today. Darren has worked across exhibitions that have featured many of today’s leading artists, has toured major exhibitions for Tate Liverpool around the world, and has commissioned several new works. Most recently, his Radical Landscapes exhibition explores climate emergency, trespass and social and cultural change through a century of landscape art – an exhibition which shares Harewood’s values entirely.

With a history of collections care and producing exhibitions closely linked to Harewood’s programming ambitions, trustee of Harewood House Trust Iwona Blazwick OBE commented:

‘Pih’s deep engagement with modern and contemporary art will bring a dynamic new perspective to Harewood, connecting its distinguished history of arts patronage with the present. I can’t wait to see what his curatorial vision will contribute – not only to Harewood’s great legacy but the wider Yorkshire art scene’.

Since 2017, Harewood – which reached a record-breaking 250,000 visitors in 2021 – has been pushing the boundaries of its programming under the leadership of Jane Marriott, building on the Trust’s and the Lascelles’ commitment to acknowledging the estate’s colonial past for over 30 years, and exploring and provoking conversation around societal issues that affect us all. This commitment remains stronger than ever and is central to the Trust’s programming aims, the work of its staff and volunteers, and working with the communities in and around Leeds.

Trust Director Jane Marriott comments of Darren’s appointment:

‘I am delighted to welcome Darren as Harewood’s first Chief Curator and Artistic Director. This role epitomises our ambitions to reimagine the country house for the 21st century with bold, exciting and innovative programming. Darren brings a thoughtful approach and excellent track record, in combining the care of historic collections with the work of contemporary artists, in order to develop our ambitions as a charity and museum.’

Darren Pih’s first major exhibition under his curatorial lead will be Harewood’s second Craft Spotlight, to be announced later this year, and a Harewood ‘year of play’ to coincide with Leeds 2023 celebrations. On his appointment, he said:

‘I am delighted to be joining Harewood and contributing to its ambitions by leading its exhibitions programme. Harewood and its history make it a unique site for presenting art and ideas that engage with many of the most urgent issues of our time, including environmental responsibility, colonialism and social inclusion. It’s a fantastic opportunity to create new knowledge around its collections, by bringing contemporary and modern art into dialogue with the heritage and history of Harewood.’

Download the full press release including editor’s notes >> 

A snapshot of art on display

Over 400 A-level art students have displayed over 400 pieces of artwork at Harewood House over the last ten years, in a schools’ partnership that has grown and flourished during that time. From this month until September, 91 pieces of art of exceptional quality are on display in The Education Suite in The Courtyard, free to view.

At a recent launch, attended by over 200 people including students, their families, tutors and friends, Harewood House Trust Director Jane Marriott and Head Curator Hannah Obee handed out three Highly Commended prizes and one Best in Show, to pupils whose work spanned a broad range of art including photography, design, painting and mixed media.

“By welcoming a new generation of young artists to display their work, in a professional space at Harewood, in an environment that has long been associated with high quality contemporary art and a well-established education programme, we can offer them a chance to succeed.” Said Jane Marriott.

“It is no secret that the Arts have come under significant political and curriculum pressure in recent years, as the focus of successive governments on literacy, maths and science has marginalised its teaching in schools. We therefore wanted to assist the nurturing of a generation of creative and visual thinkers; to develop autonomy, observational and analytical skills.

“It is with great pride and delight that we are able to offer this high-profile platform for local young artists. The chosen pieces of work are of exceptional quality and they inspire not only us, but those who will visit and enjoy them. The Arts matter and the creative industries is one of our most thriving industries. Harewood has, and will, continue to play a vital role in supporting this.”

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13 schools across the Leeds, Harrogate, Ilkley and Otley areas as part of the Red Kite Schools Alliance; Benton Park School, Brigshaw High School, Crawshaw Academy, Harrogate Grammar School, Ilkley Grammar School, Lawnswood School, Malton School, Prince Henry’s Grammar School, Ralph Thoresby High School, Rossett School, Roundhay School, South Craven School, Temple Moor High School.

At last night’s private view to launch Harewood’s Epstein exhibition Finding Adam, Diane Howse (Viscountess Lascelles) announced that sculptor Antony Gormley will be showing two new pieces of work in the Terrace Gallery later this summer.

Our current exhibition ‘Finding Adam’ explores the epic journey of Sir Jacob Epstein’s magnificent alabaster sculpture Adam from his origins in Epstein’s studio in London to Harewood House in Yorkshire, via Blackpool, New York, Cape Town and the Edinburgh Festival, as well as celebrating his return from cleaning and exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

“Adam and Epstein are a very hard act to follow,” said artist/curator Diane Howse. “I knew of Antony’s relationship to Epstein’s work and all of us here are huge fans of Antony, so we’re thrilled to have two pieces by him in the Terrace Gallery later this summer. It’s very much in keeping with our policy of showing the best of contemporary art alongside our historic collections, something my father-in-law Lord Harewood set in motion when he brought Adam here in the 1970’s. Yorkshire is rapidly becoming the place to see modern sculpture: the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Henry Moore Institute are well-established of course and they are about to be joined by the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield, which opens later this month. We’re proud to be playing our part in this celebration, not only with the Epstein exhibition, but also by showing work by one of Britain’s finest living artists.”

Antony Gormley adds: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to show two works at Harewood House, long associated with ‘Adam’, Epstein’s powerful evocation of masculine yearning carved from a massive block of English alabaster.

My material is iron. Smelted and cast in Wednesbury, it also engages with the block but uses the language of architecture to interpret the male human body as an unstable space made up of individual cells fused and propped together. The room in which the works will be shown is supported by four stone columns that make you aware of the load path of the building. I hope that these two works, in which columns and masses describe an unsteady vertical stack twisting through 90 degrees, will allow the viewer to think about his or her own body as a vertical tower.”

Antony Gormley’s installation will open to the public in the Terrace Gallery at Harewood on Saturday 13th August and will run till 30th October.

You can read more about the forthcoming Gormley exhibition on our webpage here… www.harewood.org/gormley

Buckingham Palace and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London are just two famous buildings that feature Scagliola, a marble imitation that was first developed in the Baroque era. Today it is often more expensive than real marble because it is so complicated to make. Only experts can determine Scagliola from the real thing.

Deutsche Welle, Germany’s equivalent of BBC-World, visited Harewood this week with Michael Koumbouzis of the Leeds-based ‘Scagliola Company’ to explore Harewood’s collections…you can see the footage on Euromaxx (Deutsche Welle’s daily life and style magazine show) here.

Visit the House from 22nd April 2011 to see if you can spot the scagliola and marble pieces we have!

http://www.harewood.org/house