NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Assistant Curator (Reference Collection)

Part-time, 16 hours per week (2 days Thursday and Friday)

The Assistant Curators (Reference Collection) report to the Associate Curator (Reference Collection) who is line-managed by the Head of Archive and Library. Working as part of a small team, this part-time post will be primarily a public-facing role, answering portrait-related enquiries and contributing to the information and research services provided in the public study room. Some duties associated with developing the resources held by the Archive and Library and supervising volunteers may also be required.

Principle tasks include:

  • Answering written enquiries from researchers and members of the public relating to British portraiture.
  • Participating in a weekly rota to supervise and invigilate the public study room of the Archive and Library, in particular, ensuring researchers, public and staff can access the information they require, helping to maintain the study room in good order; making bookings and answering telephone enquiries.
  • Providing support, when necessary, to help care for the Reference Collection of prints and drawings, potentially including discrete cataloguing projects, develop the sitter and artist files of photographic and other reproductions of British portraits and to record portraits held in other collections.
  • Supervising volunteers, as necessary,who are assigned to help with dry-mounting, captioning and filingimages for the sitter and artist boxes.
  • Participating in the presentation of group visits to the Archive & Library and internal training of other Gallery Staff
  • Any other duties that may be required by the Associate Curator (Reference Collection) and Head of Archive and Library.

The part-time Assistant Curator (Reference Collection) will spend half a day a week invigilating in the public study room, half-a day providing on-call support and undertaking other duties and approximately one day a week dealing with letter and e-mail enquiries.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Assistant Curator (Reference Collection)

Person Specification

Qualifications and skills

  • A degree in Art History/History or a related subject, with a particular interest in portraiture.
  • The successful candidate will be someone who is methodical, accurate and careful in all aspects of their job and who enjoys working as part of a small team. The candidate must also be able to work independently showing initiative, take responsibility when required and supervise volunteers.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to liaise effectively with a wide range of people (e.g. curators, academic and commercial researchers, and members of the public).

Experience

  • Experience of working in a similar environment and/or with visual resources.
  • Experience of word-processing packages and collections management database systems.
  • Knowledge of a European language would be an advantage.

Other

  • The work requires some heavy lifting therefore physical fitness is important
  • An interest in portraits and portraiture

This is not, however, an exhaustive list of duties and the Gallery’s management may, at any time, allocate other tasks which are of a similar nature or level.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Assistant Curator (Reference Collection)

Details of the post are given below and in the job description. You should take care to show in your application how you can fulfil the requirements of the job.

Term of Appointment

This appointment is fixed-term until the end of March 2014.

Hours

Your contracted hours of work will be 16 (2 days) per week. Your working days will be Thursday and Friday.

Pay

The salary for this post will be £8,337 per annum (£20,843 pro-rata).

Annual Leave

Your annual leave allowance is pro-rata 25 days per annum.

Place of Work

Most of the work is based in the Gallery at St Martin’s Place, but all staff are required to work at other locations if necessary.

Equality

The Gallery believes in the employment and advancement of people solely on their ability to do the job required. When recruiting people, we will therefore disregard their gender, marital status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, religion and sexual orientation. There will be no unfair discrimination on the basis of disability. If you would like to submit your application in a different format we are happy to allow this. Please contact us (telephone: 020 7306 0055 email: ) so that we may discuss suitable alternatives.

Pension

Pension benefits are provided under the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS).

Probation and Trial Period

All appointments are subject to satisfactory employment and character references, security clearance and eligibility to work in the UK. There is a probationary period of 1 year for all permanent posts. The probation period for this position is 6 months.

Data Protection Act

Information provided by you as part of your application will be used in the recruitment process. Any data about you will be held securely with access restricted to those involved in dealing with your application in the recruitment process. Once this process is completed the data relating to unsuccessful applicants will be stored for a maximum of 6 months and then destroyed. If you are the successful candidate, your application form will be retained and form the basis of your personnel record. Information provided by you on the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form will be used to monitor National Portrait Gallery’s equal opportunities policy and practices. By signing and submitting your completed application form you are giving your consent to your data being stored and processed (if you submit your application by e-mail and the application form is un-signed we will assume that consent by you is given) for the purpose of the recruitment process, equal opportunities monitoring and your personnel record if you are the successful candidate.

Season Tickets

Interest free loans are available for the purchase of a season ticket for travel to work.

Please return your completed application form to:

Mrs Caroline Wynter

Head of Personnel

National Portrait Gallery

2 St Martin’s Place

London

WC2H 0HE

by first post (9.00 am) on Wednesday 15 May, 2013.

We are expecting to hold interviews on Tuesday 28 May, 2013 Please indicate on the form if you will not be available on this date.

If you are delivering your application by hand, please take it to the reception desk at 39-45 Orange Street.

Due to our funding position we are unable to respond to every application, therefore if you have not had a response to your application by 31 May 2013 please assume that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.

Thank you for your time and effort in completing and returning your application.