Ron Radford

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Ron Radford AM is an Australian curator who led the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) from 2004 to 2014. Before that, he was the director of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in Adelaide. Born in 1949 in Warragul, Victoria, he studied at Scotch College, Melbourne, the University of Melbourne, and RMIT University. In 2006 the University of Adelaide awarded him a Doctor of Letters for his body of work as a curator and gallery director.

Radford began his career as an education officer at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1971–72. He then directed the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery from 1973 to 1980, a position once held by NGA’s founding director James Mollison. From 1980 to 1988 he was curator of European and Australian Paintings and Sculpture at AGSA. He became AGSA director in 1990, expanding the Australian collection (especially from the colonial period), building up Asian art, and strengthening the Renaissance holdings. He moved to the NGA as director in December 2004.

As NGA director he supported lending Old Masters to state galleries for long-term display and argued the NGA should focus on its strengths—early 20th‑century European art, 20th‑century American art, photography, Asian art, and the 20th‑century drawing collection—while filling gaps in the Australian collection. He retired in September 2014.

Radford has served on many boards, including chairing the Australia Council Visual Arts/Craft Board (1997–2002) and helping found the National Portrait Gallery board (1997–2005). He has held roles with the Gordon Darling Foundation, Art Exhibitions Australia, Bundanon Trust, and the Australia International Cultural Council, and was an affiliate professor at the University of Adelaide. He received a Churchill Fellowship and fellowships to the Yale Center for British Art and the Huntington Library. The Ordnance Store at AGSA was renamed the Radford Auditorium in his honor. He has written several art books and exhibition guides.