British art museum curator
Andrew John Bolton
OBE (born 1966
[1] ) is a British museum
curator and current head curator of the
Anna Wintour Costume Center at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City .
Early life and education
Bolton was born in 1966 in
Blackburn, Lancashire and majored in anthropology at the
University of East Anglia in
Norwich , where he graduated with an undergraduate degree in 1987, and subsequently completed a master's degree.
[1]
Career
Bolton began his career at London's
Victoria and Albert Museum .
[2]
[3]
On September 8, 2015, it was announced that he would replace the retiring
Harold Koda as curator in chief of the
Anna Wintour Costume Center .
[4] Later that year, he was awarded the
Vilcek Prize in Fashion .
[2]
[5] Bolton has created and or co-created several critically lauded exhibitions including
Savage Beauty featuring clothing created by British
fashion designer
Alexander McQueen , as well as
China: Through the Looking Glass (both with Koda).
[2] Bolton exhibitions are known for their, "scholarly rigor....whimsy.... (and) theatricality."
[2]
Japanese fashion designer
Rei Kawakubo was the subject of the 2017 exhibit.
[6] In an interview with Vogue in April 2017, Bolton stated: “I really think her influence is so huge, but sometimes it’s subtle. It’s not about copying her; it’s the purity of her vision.”
[7] Bolton also stated that the exhibition would be an austere, all-white maze hosting approximately 150 Comme ensembles. Both the exhibit and accompanying book by Bolton are based upon the recurrent fashion dichotomies concentrating on eight thematic oppositions listed as: (1) fashion/antifashion; (2) design/not design; (3) model/multiple; (4) then/now; (5) high/low; (6) self/other; (7) object/subject; and (8) clothes/not clothes.
Bolton's show, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination , opened on 10 May 2018. Bolton described the exhibition as an examination of "the role dress plays within the
Roman Catholic Church and the role the Roman Catholic Church plays within the fashionable imagination."
[8] The exhibition included objects from the Vatican Collection alongside designs by
Gianni Versace ,
John Galliano for Dior ,
Yves Saint Laurent and other designers.
[9]
Bolton is featured alongside
Anna Wintour in
Andrew Rossi 's 2016 documentary film
The First Monday in May , which documents the staging of the Metropolitan Museum's annual
Costume Institute Gala .
[10]
Bolton was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the
2023 Birthday Honours for services to art and fashion.
[11]
Costume Institute exhibitions
2006:
AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion (May 3 – September 6, 2006)
2007 :
Poiret : King of Fashion (May 9 – August 5, 2007)
2008 :
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy (May 7 – September 1, 2008)
2009 :
The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion (May 6 – August 9, 2009)
2010 :
American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity (May 5 – August 10, 2010)
2011 :
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (May 4 – August 7, 2011)
2012 :
Schiaparelli and
Prada : Impossible Conversations (May 10 – August 19, 2012)
2013 :
Punk: Chaos to Couture (May 9 – August 14, 2013)
2014 :
Charles James : Beyond Fashion (May 8 – August 10, 2014)
2014–2015 :
Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire (October 21, 2014 – February 1, 2015)
2015 :
China: Through the Looking Glass • (May 7 – September 7, 2015)
2015–2016 :
Jacqueline de Ribes : The Art of Style (November 19, 2015 – February 21, 2016)
2016 :
Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology (May 5 – September 5, 2016)
2016–2017 : Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion (November 18, 2016 – February 5, 2017)
2017 :
Rei Kawakubo /
Comme des Garçons : Art of the In-Between (May 4 – September 4, 2017)
2018 : Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination (May 10 – October 8, 2018)
2019 :
Camp: Notes on Fashion (May 8 – September 9, 2019)
2020 : About Time: Fashion and Duration
2021–2022 In America: A Lexicon of Fashion (Part one of a two part exhibition)
2022 In America: An Anthology of Fashion (Part two of a two part exhibition)
Personal life
Since 2011, Bolton has lived in
Manhattan with fashion designer
Thom Browne , his partner.
[12]
[13]
Literary works
The following is an incomplete list of his literary works:
Bolton, Andrew (2002). The Supermodern Wardrobe . New York: V&A.
Bolton, Andrew (November 2, 2010).
Sui, Anna ;
White, Jack ;
Meisel, Steven , eds. Anna Sui . New York: Chronicle Books.
ISBN
1452128596 .
Bolton, Andrew (2011). McQueen, Alexander, eds. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ISBN
9781588394125 .
Bolton, Andrew (and Richard Hell, Jon Savage, John Lydon) (2013), eds. Punk: Chaos to Couture . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bolton, Andrew (2016). Manux X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bolton, Andrew (2017). Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bolton, Andrew (2018). Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bolton, Andrew (2019). In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
References
^
a
b
"Anarchy Unleashed" . The New Yorker . 2013-03-18. Retrieved 2022-09-27 .
^
a
b
c
d Trebay, Guy (29 April 2015).
"At the Met, Andrew Bolton Is the Storyteller in Chief" . New York Times . Retrieved 13 August 2015 .
^ Tomkins, Calvin (25 March 2013).
"Anarchy Unleashed" . The New Yorker . Retrieved 13 August 2015 .
^ Pogrebin, Robin (8 September 2015).
"Andrew Bolton Chosen to Lead the Met's Costume Institute" . New York Times . Retrieved 9 September 2015 .
^ Chilton, Nancy.
"Andrew Bolton Wins 2015 Vilcek Prize in Fashion" . Metropolitan Museum of Art . Retrieved 10 February 2015 .
^
Time magazine. Kawakubo announcement of 2017 exhibit
^ Lynn Yaeger. "On the Eve of the
Comme des Garçons Retrospective, the Notoriously Reclusive Rei Kawakubo Speaks Out", APRIL 13, 2017, Vogue Magazine.
^ Bolton, Andrew (April 23, 2018).
"The Metaphorical Nature of Creation: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" . The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved May 11, 2018 .
^
"Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" . The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum . Retrieved 2018-04-30 .
^
"New Zealand International Film Festival: The First Monday in May" .
^
"No. 64082" .
The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2023. p. B26.
^ Posted December 6, 2016 (2016-12-06).
"Fashion Designer Thom Browne's 1930s Manhattan Apartment" . Architectural Digest. Retrieved 2018-05-11 . {{
cite web }}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link )
^ Leland, John (29 April 2016).
"How Andrew Bolton of Met Costume Institute Spends His Sundays - The New York Times" .
The New York Times . Retrieved 2018-05-11 .
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