Past Event
Richard Hollis was the Whitechapel Gallery’s main graphic designer from 1969 to 1973 and from 1978 to 1985. His designs helped to define the Whitechapel Gallery’s identity in the early 1970s and 80s and he is here celebrated in a lecture presented by author Christopher Wilson. This is followed by a panel discussion chaired by graphic designer and typography historian Catherine Dixon, and featuring Chair of Arts Council England Sir Nicholas Serota and former Camden Arts Centre Director Jenni Lomax.
In association with Hyphen Press, publisher of Richard Hollis designs for the Whitechapel.
Christopher Wilson is a graphic designer (as Oberphones) and writer. His design clients have included Blanche Pictures, Bloc Projects, Cambridge University Press, City & Guilds, Condé Nast, Cluster, HarperCollins, Laurence King, National Film Theatre, Phaidon, Royal College of Art, Site Gallery, and South Bank Centre. He worked with Richard Hollis on many projects from 1999 to 2004. Since 2000 he has written for publications including Dot Dot Dot, Eye, Grafik, The Guardian, Icon, and TypoGraphic, and wrote much of Frieze’s monograph Designed by Peter Saville (2003). He has taught at Central Saint Martins and Chelsea College of Arts.
Catherine Dixon is a designer, writer and teacher. As a designer she works mainly with text-based projects for clients including Laurence King, Penguin, and Phaidon. As a writer she has a particular interest in type design and the forms of letters more generally, co-authoring with Phil Baines the book ‘Signs: lettering in the environment’ and speaking regularly at international typography conferences. She is a Senior Lecturer on the Graphic Communication Design Programme at Central Saint Martins in London. From 2011 to 2012 she was a Visiting Professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
Jenni Lomax is an independent curator, and was director of Camden Arts Centre from 1990 to 2017, where she established a forward-thinking programme of international exhibitions, artists, residencies and education projects. She led the organisation through a major building refurbishment scheme which was completed in early 2004. She was awarded the Order of the Polar Star in 2017, Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007, and received an OBE for her services to the visual arts in 2009. Before Camden Arts Centre, she developed and led the Community Education and Public Programmes at the Whitechapel through the 1980s. Throughout her career she has been involved in an advisory capacity with many arts, education and charitable organisations, and has been a member of selection and judging panels for awards and exhibitions including the Freelands Award, the Turner Prize, Arts Foundation Award, Jerwood Drawing Prize and the Nissan Art Prize.
Nicholas Serota is chair of Arts Council England and a member of the Executive Board of the BBC. He was the director of the Whitechapel Gallery from 1976-88, re-establishing the gallery’s international reputation and developing a programme of activity with artists, schools and the community in East London. He was the Director of Tate from 1988 to 2017. During this period Tate opened Tate St Ives (1993) and Tate Modern (2000, extended 2016), redefining the Millbank building as Tate Britain (2000). The national role of the Gallery was strengthened with the creation of the Plus Tate network of 35 institutions across the UK, while Tate extended its field of interest to include twentieth-century photography, film, performance and architecture, as well as collecting from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
