Caroline Campbell
Director of the National Gallery of Ireland
Born and educated in Belfast, Dr Caroline Campbell became the Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in November 2022.
Caroline studied Modern History at University College Oxford, and has an MA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She is a former Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, New York.
Before joining the National Gallery of Ireland, Caroline was the Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery, London. Earlier in her career she held curatorial positions at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Courtauld Gallery, London, and the National Gallery.
Caroline has published widely on European art from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, particularly on the Italian Renaissance. She has curated and co-curated many exhibitions, including Bellini and the East (2005-06), Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (2009); Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting (2014), Duccio/Caro: In Dialogue (2015), Mantegna and Bellini (2018-19) and Siena: The Rise of Painting (2024-25), which won the Apollo Exhibition of the Year Prize 2025. Her first book, The Power of Art, was published in 2023.
Caroline is a strong advocate of broadening participation and digital engagement in museums. Her interest in art history developed after a visit to the National Gallery of Ireland as a teenager, and she wants all young people to be able to see and enjoy great art.