Kids in Museums

Patron
We are delighted to welcome Mariella Frostrup as the first patron of Kids in Museums. Mariella has firmly established herself at the top end of opinion forming journalists and TV presenters. Defying any attempt to pigeonhole her skills and talents, Mariella has made her mark on a wide variety of programmes.

On television in a fifteen-year career she has continued to impress both audiences and critics with her friendly, accessible and intelligent screen presence. Her projects run the gamut from current affairs (Panorama, Question Time and Backlash) to movies and the arts, presenting Open Book and the recent Memory Season on BBC Radio 4.

Mariella is also a respected arts critic and has sat on the judging panels of many awards including the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Evening Standard Film Awards, the Amnesty International Media Awards, the Whitbread Book Of The Year, the London Film Festival and the RIBA Stirling Prize Awards 2006.

Mariella lives in London with her husband and two children.

Trustees
The Kids in Museums trustees are an interesting bunch, bringing a wide range of experience and outlooks to the board. The trustees oversee the vision and aims of the organisation and the implementation of the projects.

Chair: DR ELIZABETH MACKENZIE (above, 2nd left) is a trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the ss Great Britain Trust and Vice-Chairman & International Representative for the British Association of Friends of Museums (BAFM). From 1998-2004 she was Chairman of BAFM having served as a Vice-Chairman and Regional Representative for the South West. She is also a member of the Museums & Galleries Month Working Group, co-chair of Museums & Galleries Month in 2007, and has been on the Museums Association Governing Bodies Forum. In 2005 and 2006, she was a judge for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year. Before retiring, Liz was a Consultant Cytopathologist in Bristol and President of the British Society for Clinical Cytology.


BRIAN STEWART (above left) started his career at the fine art auctioneers Christie’s. He is author of a large number of books and articles including The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain, The Shayer Family of Painters, Thomas Sidney Cooper RA CVO of Canterbury, The Rupert Bear Dossier and The Enid Blyton Dossier.
He has acted as a consultant to many collectors, and public and private galleries in Europe, America and Asia and has a track record for discovering lost or forgotten works of art including paintings by Aert van der Neer, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, Arthur Devis, Paul Cesar Helleu, John Trumbull, Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir Edwin Landseer and J.M.W.Turner.
He is currently director of Falmouth Art Gallery, which has won or been nominated for 14 national awards including winning the Interpret Britain and Ireland Awards, The Heritage & Museums Excellence Awards, the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Heritage Hero Award and The Guardian Family Friendly Museums Award. He also mounted the lowest budget project ever to be nominated for The Gulbenkian prize with a project costing less than £5,000.

JULIE TAYLOR (above, right) is Head of Public Relations for Guardian News and Media (GNM), publishers of the Guardian and Observer newspapers and the network of Guardian Unlimited websites. She was previously Director of Communications at the Museums and Galleries Commission and has worked for a range of magazines and arts organisations including the National Theatre, the Arts Council, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Opera North; Esquire, Harpers & Queen and Country Living.


ANRA KENNEDY (above, 2nd right) is Head of Learning at Culture24, publishers of 24 Hour Museum and Show Me. Her role at C24 encompasses writing, research, editorial and educational development, and the production of e-learning resources. Show Me is all about encouraging children to enjoy museums and galleries and attracts several million visitors each year.
Anra’s worked on many different e-learning projects over the last few years, including games and resources for the National Portrait Gallery, the Natural History Museum and Access Art. Her most recent and ongoing project is the Parliament and the British Slave Trade 1600-1807 website, created for the Parliamentary Archives. Her writing and e-learning consultancy clients include MLA, Becta, Norfolk Museums, TES, The Open University and the Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail.


DIANE LEES is Director of the V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green, with the specific brief to transform the Museum and create a sustainable future for this East End site, she also chairs the V&A’s UK Steering Group. Beginning as an historic buildings researcher and moving into exhibitions, education and interpretation, she has worked on some of the most challenging and exciting projects in the country, including the rescue and relocation of a hat block manufacturers workshop in central Manchester and the recovery and display of the Mary Rose ship in Portsmouth Harbour. She project managed the creation of the UK standard for the recording of information about museum collections (SPECTRUM) and was responsible for the creation of the only museum of law in the Country (the multi-award winning Galleries of Justice in Nottingham). She is a trustee of the Story Museum in Oxford, a trustee of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust and Vice Chair of the Association of Independent Museums.


HELEN WILLETT is a partner in City law firm SJ Berwin specialising in commercial real estate.
Before becoming a lawyer Helen did a degree in Chemistry and Philosophy of Science at Kings College, University of London and then taught English at a language school in Paris.

Helen is mum to three-and-a-half-year-old twins Edith and Lois who, along with their friends Catherine and Lucy (also twins) were judges for the 2006 Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award. Helen became a Kids in Museums Trustee in 2007. Helen is an active committee member of the Dulwich and District Twins Club and lives in South London. Edith is wearing the hairband in our photo.


Philip Mould OBE is one of the country’s foremost authorities on British art, and is widely consulted by galleries, private collectors and the media. He is regarded as the leading specialist in British portraiture, including Tudor and Jacobean, seventeenth and eighteenth century, and even contemporary commissions. He is also well known for his numerous discoveries in the area of early British art.
Philip is an expert valuer for the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme and since 1998 has been official art adviser to the House of Commons and to the House of Lords.
In recognition of his art world expertise and contribution to portrait heritage he was created OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the January 2005 New Year’s Honours list.
Philip has published on art related subjects and is the author of the acclaimed book Sleepers: In Search of Lost Old Masters (published in paperback as The Trail of Lot 163 by 4th Estate, London). He is also a regular broadcaster, reviewer and writer for the national press. His television work includes writing and presenting the Channel 4 series, Changing Faces, co-presenting BBC2’s Antiques Show, and as an expert on the Antiques Road Show.

Kids in Museums logo and banner illustrations all © Quentin Blake.