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Philip Mould

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Philip Mould
OBE
Philip Mould in 2011
Born
Philip Jonathan Clifford Mould

March 1960 (age 64)
Wirral, Cheshire, England
EducationUniversity of East Anglia
Occupations
Websitewww.philipmould.com

Philip Jonathan Clifford Mould OBE (born March 1960) is an English art dealer, London gallery owner, art historian, writer and broadcaster.[1] He has made a number of major art discoveries, including works of Thomas Gainsborough, Anthony Van Dyck and Thomas Lawrence.

Mould is the author of two books on art discovery and is widely consulted by the media on the subject. He co-presents the BBC television programme Fake or Fortune?, an arts programme, with journalist and broadcaster Fiona Bruce.[2]

Early life and education

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Mould was born in Wirral, Cheshire and educated at Kingsmead School, Hoylake, Worth School and the University of East Anglia, from which he graduated with a BA in History of Art in 1981.[3]

Mould's father owned a factory in Liverpool and his family was based in the Wirral Peninsula.[4] Mould made friends with the owner of a local antiques shop, who taught him to read hallmarks on silver when he was just 11 or 12 years old, and by the age of 14 he was dealing in antique silver.[4]

Career

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Portrait of Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486–1502) reidentified by Mould

Mould began art dealing in his early teens and has since established an art dealership specialising in British art, a subject on which he is internationally consulted.[5] He has sold works to public institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York),[6] National Portrait Gallery (London), Museum of Fine Arts Boston,[7] Tate,[8] The Huntington Library (California),[9] and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.[10]

Mould has worked as a valuer for the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Government's Acceptance in Lieu scheme. Between 1988 and 2010 he acted as honorary art adviser to the House of Commons and the House of Lords.[11] He is president of the charity Kids in Museums,[12] president and ex-chairman of Plantlife International,[13] a patron of Fight for Sight[14] and Acton for ME.[15] He was elected as a fellow of the Linnean Society in 2012.[16]

Mould is also a trustee of Benton End, the former home of artist Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, who ran the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in the house.[17]

Mould is a regular broadcaster, reviewer and writer for the national press. His television work includes writing and presenting the Channel 4 series Changing Faces, and featuring as an expert on the Antiques Roadshow. In 2011, he began co-hosting the television programme Fake or Fortune? with Fiona Bruce.[18] Fake or Fortune? has regularly drawn an audience of 5 million and in 2016 it won Best Factual Programme at the RTS West of England Awards.[2][19] He has authored two critically acclaimed books on art discovery.[20]

In recognition of his art world expertise and contribution to portrait heritage, he was created OBE in the 2005 New Year Honours list.[21] For his achievements in his field, as well as his involvement with numerous charities and broadcasting, Mould received an honorary doctorate in July 2013 at his former university, the University of East Anglia.[22] In 2019, he received the EVCOM (Event and Visual Communication Association) Fellowship award. The citation stated: "His expertise has shaped our understanding and knowledge of art today, and how we communicate about it".[23] In 2023, Mould received a Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Plymouth University.[24]

In January 2014, Mould warned of the increasing prevalence of what he termed "trapping" in which crooked sellers misleadingly hint that fake artworks have genuine provenance, without actually making false descriptions or asserting attributions.[25]

Art discoveries

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Mould has made a number of major art discoveries, including some of Thomas Gainsborough's earliest known works,[26] the only known portrait of Arthur, Prince of Wales[27] and lost works by Anthony van Dyck and Thomas Lawrence.[28] In January 2021, Mould found a miniature portrait of French king Henri III by Jean Decourt.[29]

Mould described some of the basics concepts for art discoveries, in an article published in The Guardian:

Although [Mould] acknowledged that auctioneers do not have the benefit of cleaning and restoring works, which help to reveal true quality, he added: "As art dealers, we scour daily the world's auction catalogues for paintings that are ... wrongly identified ... In any week, our finds might range from a misidentified Tudor icon to a misattributed 18th-century landscape … but by a strange chance we seem to have hit a seam of Van Dycks."[28]

Personal life

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Mould and his wife, Catherine, have a son born in 1997.[30] Since 2002 they have owned Duck End House in Oxfordshire, close to Chipping Norton. The house was built in 1628 by Lady Anne Cope, widow of the leading Puritan Sir Anthony Cope.[31] The property was once owned by the seventeenth-century politician Sir William Cope.[32][33][34] In 2009, false allegations against him of infidelity and financial insolvency were planted in newspapers by a rival art dealer, later disgraced.[35]

In August 2014, Mould was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[36] In October 2015, Mould appeared on BBC's Gardeners' World, in the garden of his home, discussing his passion for nature and talked of his interest in varieties of rose which would have been grown in the time of Sir Anthony van Dyck. He also discussed the work of one of his favourite artists, Cedric Morris, who was also a great plantsman.[37] Mould is a keen collector of Morris's work (for his private collection), and champions modern British artists in general; he cites the Bloomsbury Group amongst his favourites.[4]

In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mould started recording a series of short videos he calls Art in Isolation, where the viewer is invited into his home of Duck End and given personal musings on one of his collected artworks.[38][39][40]

Mould has also called on museums to allow dogs into their galleries, stating that "post-lockdown we have been reminded yet again of the important role of dogs in families" and that "allowing dogs entry will make traditionally austere galleries more accessible for families."[41]

He is president of the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife.[42]

Bibliography

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  • Sleepers: In Search of Lost Old Masters. London: Fourth Estate. 1995. ISBN 978-1857022186., retitled in paperback as... The Trail of Lot 163: In Search of Lost Art Treasures. London: Fourth Estate. 1997. ISBN 978-1857025231.
  • Sleuth: The Amazing Quest for Lost Art Treasures. London: HarperCollins. 2009. ISBN 978-0007281367., retitled for US edition as... The Art Detective: Fakes, Frauds and Finds and the Search for Lost Treasures. New York: Viking. 2010. ISBN 978-0670021857.
  • Cedric Morris: (1889–1982) Beyond the Garden Wall. London: Philip Mould Gallery. 2018. ISBN 978-0992726447. Exhibition 18 April – 22 July 2018

References

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  1. ^ Mould, Philip. "Philip Mould: why I love being a sleuth on art's treasure trail". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  2. ^ a b "It's a copy: Fake or Fortune? stars try to halt rival show". Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  3. ^ 'MOULD, Philip Jonathan Clifford', Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2013
  4. ^ a b c "My perfect weekend: Philip Mould, art sleuth". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  5. ^ Bennett, Will (12 June 2006). "Telegraph 12 June 2006". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  6. ^ "John Vanderbank, the younger | Self-Portrait | The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  7. ^ "Portrait of a Lady as a Shepherdess". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 5 February 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  8. ^ Tate. ""Portrait of the Artist's Son, Jonathan Richardson the Younger, in his Study", Jonathan Richardson c.1734 | Tate". Tate. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  9. ^ "Portrait of a Young Child – Works – The Huntington Art Collections Online Catalog". emuseum.huntington.org. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  10. ^ "The Art Fund, 'Art Saved'". Artfund.org. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  11. ^ Bennett, Will (19 March 2001). "Telegraph 19 March 2001". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  12. ^ "Kids in Museums website". Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  13. ^ "Plantlife International website". Plantlife.org.uk. Archived from the original on 4 May 2012. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  14. ^ "Philip Mould OBE joins Fight for Sight as patron – Fight for Sight". fightforsight.org.uk. 2013. Archived from the original on 25 March 2014. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  15. ^ "New Patrons announcement". www.actionforme.org.uk. 30 May 2024. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  16. ^ "The Linnean Society website". linnean.org. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
  17. ^ "Benton End - About page". bentonend.co.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  18. ^ "Fake or Fortune?". BBC Online. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
  19. ^ "RTS West of England Awards 2016". rts.org.uk. 6 March 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  20. ^ Reid, Aileen. "Sleuth: The Amazing Quest for Lost Art Treasures by Philip Mould: review". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  21. ^ "The British Theatre Guide: New Year Honours List 2005". Britishtheatreguide.info. 4 January 2005. Archived from the original on 22 January 2005. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  22. ^ "UEA to honour notable alumni at its 50th-anniversary graduation". University of East Anglia. 21 May 2013. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  23. ^ Brown, Amelia (6 December 2019). "EVCOM Fellowship Awards Lunch - Introducing Our 2019 Fellows". Evcom. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  24. ^ Williams, Alan (19 September 2023). "Celebrating achievements at Graduation 2023". plymouth.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
  25. ^ Copping, Jasper (12 January 2014). "Art experts warn of the rise of the 'trappers'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  26. ^ Millward, David. "Rare Gainsborough uncovered by Antiques Roadshow presenter". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  27. ^ Mould, Philip (13 March 1997). The Trail of Lot 163: In Search of Lost Art Treasures. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 9781857025231.
  28. ^ a b Alberge, Dalya (11 June 2011). "Van Dyck paintings unearthed by saleroom sleuth". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  29. ^ "Fake or Fortune presenter finds rare portrait by Mary, Queen of Scots court artist worth hundreds of thousands". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 30 March 2021.
  30. ^ Tyzack, Anna (14 January 2014). "My perfect weekend: Philip Mould, art sleuth" – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  31. ^ Elliot, Liz (20 November 2018). "At home in Oxfordshire with the art dealer and broadcaster Philip Mould". At home in Oxfordshire with the art dealer and broadcaster Philip Mould. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  32. ^ Period Property. "BBC presenter Philip Mould's Duck End house, Oxfordshire". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2 September 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  33. ^ Elliot, Liz (20 November 2018). "At home in Oxfordshire with the art dealer and broadcaster Philip Mould". House & Garden.
  34. ^ Musson, Jeremy (6 May 2018). "Duck End House, Oxfordshire: Why this 17th century house is a work of art in itself". Country Life.
  35. ^ Rayner, Gordon (6 May 2011). "Mayfair art dealer Mark Weiss in disgrace after admitting poison pen campaign against rival Philip Mould" – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  36. ^ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  37. ^ "BBC Two - Gardeners' World, 2015, Episode 29". Bbc.co.uk. 9 October 2015. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  38. ^ Davies, Lucy (9 April 2020). "Philip Mould interview: 'Art can colour and enrich your confinement'". The Telegraph – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  39. ^ "Philip Mould launches daily livestream based on personal collection". www.antiquestradegazette.com.
  40. ^ Burroughs, Katrina. "Interiors: how best to display your art with Art in Isolation's Philip Mould" – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  41. ^ Mendick, Robert (4 September 2021). "Let dogs enjoy art galleries and museums too, says Philip Mould". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
  42. ^ "Home". plantlife.org.uk.
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