TIME OUT
‘It’s important to have a formal business qualification in guiding an institution. I wasn’t doing it [the MBA] to go into the for-profit sector’
“I always enjoyed art in school and went on to take a BA in
History of Art and Archaeology in UCD. In those days you were offered a scholarship if you got a double first so I did a master’s by thesis on the art in the church of San Clemente in Rome,” she tells me. Inspired by the work carried out by Dr Eileen Kane, she spent
over a year in the Vatican researching the origins of the art in San Clemente. Even though hers was an unusual Irish family as it had no priests, monks or nuns to boast of, Croke availed of the gen- erosity of Fr Leonard Boyle, who was prefect of the Vatican Library for many years. “He was a remarkable man and opened many doors for me. I owe
him a debt. I spent months going through papers which were over 200 years old. Indeed I think I found an 18th century fly in one of the folios. One thing led to another and after eight months research I made the discovery in the papers in the Dominican Library,” she explains. Croke was the first person to identify the identity of the artist
behind the ceiling in San Clemente, the little known Carlo Roncalli. “I knew I would find it in the papers of the Dominican Cardinal who had commissioned the work. All research is a bit about detective work really.” Returning to Ireland armed with her MA, Croke considers her-
self to be extremely fortunate to have landed a job as a research fel- low of the National Gallery of Ireland. “This was in the Eighties and was similar to the situation there is today. Most of my class- mates and family had emigrated.” As a “young, energetic and enthusiastic” curator, she threw her-
self into her work at the Gallery, which employed only 40 people and was run by director Homan Potterton. “Among the great projects I got to work on, I was given a research fellowship to work on the French paintings owned by the Gallery. This included about 200 pieces donated by Chester Beatty, which are integrated fully into the whole collection,” Croke explains. She was appointed curator of French paintings while holding
down the role of registrar. This was prior to the expansion of the National Gallery into the Millennium Wing in 2002, in anticipa- tion of which Croke had been appointed head of exhibitions. The Millennium Wing marked a major expansion of the
National Gallery as it allowed serial exhibitions without disturbing the permanent displays in the other suites of galleries, she recalls, and some of the more interesting exhibitions were those of 19th century Danish art and exhibitions of masterpieces from Poland. “I worked with colleagues in Denmark and visited and worked in
44 UCD BUSINESS CONNECTIONS
Skagen in the very north of Jutland. Skagen is a very beautiful place which was an artists’ colony in the late 19th century. It is where the Skagerrak meets the Kattegat,” she says. Croke was also responsible for the 2004 exhibition of Polish art
in the National Gallery, a project made possible by AIB, which has since had to sell its Polish banking interests.
Art sponsorship Croke believes that business can reap great benefits from being associated with art sponsorship. “We [curators and museum man- agers] interact all the time with the for-profit sector to support exhibitions. For business this helps build goodwill in the wider community.” In 2002 Croke decided to enter the International Executive
MBA programme at UCD. “While I worked on the various exhibi- tions you did what needed to be done to get the project completed, including writing and editing the catalogue. I never made a dis- tinction between being an academic and being a curator and man- ager,” she explains. “Caring for the collection and making it available is the key and
it’s important to keep up with best international practice. You are in a non-profit business, but you require a lot of the skills such as marketing and HR, which are used by for-profit business.” In her MBA class of 2004, Croke was the only one in the public
service, the only one from the non-profit sector and the only one with an arts background. “My position was similar to an academic being appointed a head of faculty.We require a range of skills, such as peo- ple skills etc, outside our normal expertise,” she says. The MBA was hard work but she had great fun in her team
work, she recalls. “It gave me a bigger picture of the broad business world. It changes your mindset. It’s important to have a formal business qualification in guiding an institution. I wasn’t doing it to go into the for-profit sector. “Now I can ask myself what is the mindset of the business com-
munity? What are they looking for from you? I would like to counter the view that arts people cannot be good at business.” Such management and business skills stood to her, and in 2008
Croke took over from Sergio Benedetti as head curator at the National Gallery. Her talents were spotted again when in March this year she was appointed to her new role as director of the Chester Beatty Library. With almost 250,000 visitors a year – many of them students of oriental art and literature – the new director of the Chester Beatty Library will face challenges akin to those of many a business leader.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56