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| Sir Philip Hendy | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sir Philip Hendy |
| Caption | Sir Philip Hendy, c. 1950s |
| Birth date | 2 March 1900 |
| Birth place | Wolverhampton, Staffordshire |
| Death date | 30 December 1980 |
| Death place | London |
| Occupation | Curator, Museum director, Art historian |
| Known for | Director of the National Gallery, London; Director of the National Galleries of Scotland |
| Awards | Knight Bachelor (1951) |
Sir Philip Hendy was a British museum curator and art historian who directed major public collections in the United Kingdom during the mid-20th century. He is best known for his leadership of the National Gallery, London during and after the Second World War and for transforming the administrative and curatorial practices of the National Galleries of Scotland. Hendy played a central role in wartime salvage, exhibition planning, acquisition campaigns and the re-establishment of public access to national collections. His career intersected with leading figures and institutions in European art history, conservation, and cultural policy.
Philip Hendy was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire into a family with roots in provincial English civic life. He read modern languages and art history at Oxford University where he encountered lecturers and scholars connected to the Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, and the emergent field of museum professionalisation. Early associations included postgraduate contact with curators from the Courtauld Institute of Art and critics active at the Times Literary Supplement and The Burlington Magazine, which shaped his interest in Old Master painting and institutional practice.
Hendy joined the National Gallery, London in the 1920s and rose through curatorial ranks amid the interwar expansion of British cultural institutions. He worked closely with directors and trustees associated with the British Museum, Tate Gallery, Ashmolean Museum, and prominent collectors such as Samuel Courtauld and Alfred Beit. During the lead-up to the Second World War, Hendy coordinated efforts with officials from the Ministry of Works and the War Office to develop evacuation plans for the collection, collaborating with conservators from the Royal College of Art and conservators linked to the Victoria and Albert Museum. During wartime displacement of works, he liaised with foreign service figures and museum directors across France, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands to safeguard paintings and organise later restitutions. After the war, Hendy played a pivotal role in the Gallery’s return to Hanover Square and in high-profile exhibitions featuring loans from institutions including the Louvre, Uffizi Gallery, Prado Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In the late 1950s Hendy assumed leadership of the National Galleries of Scotland where he oversaw consolidation of collections at galleries in Edinburgh and relationships with the Royal Scottish Academy and Scottish patronage networks such as the Courtauld Institute of Art affiliates in Scotland. He negotiated acquisitions and loans involving continental institutions like the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, while engaging with Scottish civic bodies, including the City of Edinburgh Council and national cultural agencies that later evolved into the Scottish Arts Council. His tenure strengthened professional ties between Scottish curators and peers at the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.
Hendy’s curatorial approach combined connoisseurship influenced by scholars at the Courtauld Institute of Art and archival research akin to methods used at the British Library and Bodleian Library. He emphasised provenance work, technical examination in collaboration with conservation scientists from the National Physical Laboratory and photographic documentation with the National Portrait Gallery’s imaging teams. Notable acquisitions and negotiations under his auspices involved Old Master paintings comparable in significance to holdings of the Frick Collection, Wallace Collection, and the Rijksmuseum, and he brokered celebrated loans and purchases from private donors, descendants of collectors linked to the V&A, Sir John Soane's Museum, and continental estates.
Hendy authored and edited catalogues and essays that were published in venues such as The Burlington Magazine, the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, and catalogue series associated with the National Gallery, London and the National Galleries of Scotland. His scholarship reflected engagement with the work of historians and critics like Johannes Wilde, Ludwig Burchard, Anthony Blunt, and conservation scientists associated with institutions such as the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Instituto Centrale per il Restauro. He contributed to exhibition catalogues involving loans from the Louvre and authored commentary used by trustees at bodies like the National Trust and the National Art Collections Fund.
Hendy was knighted as a Knight Bachelor for services to the arts and received honours and recognition from civic bodies in Edinburgh and London. His career was not without controversy: debates around wartime decisions, acquisition policy, and curatorial appointments involved figures from the Institute of Directors and trustees of the National Gallery, London and provoked responses in outlets such as The Times and The Guardian. His legacy endures in modern museum practice, influencing protocols at the National Galleries of Scotland, the National Gallery, London, and professional training models at the Courtauld Institute of Art and the V&A. Hendy’s papers and correspondence remain of interest to researchers consulting archives at the National Archives (United Kingdom) and institutional records held by the National Galleries of Scotland.
Category:British art historians Category:Directors of museums in the United Kingdom