Philip Mould | |
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.jpg) Mould in August 2011 | |
| Born | Philip Jonathan Clifford Mould March 1960 (age 64–65) |
| Education | University of East Anglia |
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| Website | www |
Philip Jonathan Clifford MouldOBE (born March 1960) is an Englishart dealer, London gallery owner, art historian, writer and broadcaster.[1] He has made a number of major art discoveries, including works ofThomas Gainsborough,Anthony Van Dyck andThomas 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 programmeFake or Fortune?, an arts programme, with journalist and broadcasterFiona Bruce.[2]
Mould was born inWirral,Cheshire and educated atKingsmead School, Hoylake,Worth School and theUniversity 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 theWirral 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]
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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 asThe 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 theRoyal Albert Memorial Museum.[10]
Mould has worked as a valuer for theHeritage Lottery Fund and the Government'sAcceptance in Lieu scheme. Between 1988 and 2010 he acted as honorary art adviser to theHouse of Commons and theHouse of Lords.[11] He is president of the charity Kids in Museums,[12] president and ex-chairman ofPlantlife International,[13] a patron ofFight for Sight[14] andActon for ME.[15] He was elected as a fellow of theLinnean Society in 2012.[16]
Mould is also a trustee ofBenton End, the former home of artistCedric Morris andArthur Lett-Haines, who ran theEast 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 theChannel 4 seriesChanging Faces, and featuring as an expert on theAntiques Roadshow. In 2011, he began co-hosting the television programmeFake 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 theRTS 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 createdOBE in the2005 New Year Honours list.[21] For his achievements in his field, as well as his involvement with numerous charities and broadcasting, Mould received anhonorary doctorate in July 2013 at hisformer university, theUniversity 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]
Mould has made a number of major art discoveries, including some of Thomas Gainsborough's earliest known works,[26] the only known portrait ofArthur, Prince of Wales[27] and lost works byAnthony van Dyck andThomas Lawrence.[28] In January 2021, Mould found aminiature portrait of French kingHenri III byJean Decourt.[29]
Mould described some of the basics concepts for art discoveries, in an article published inThe 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]
Mould and his wife, Catherine, have a son born in 1997.[30] Since 2002 they have ownedDuck End House in Oxfordshire, close toChipping Norton. In 2009, false allegations against him of infidelity and financial insolvency were planted in newspapers by a rival art dealer, later disgraced.[31]
In August 2014, Mould was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter toThe Guardian opposingScottish independence in the run-up to September'sreferendum on that issue.[32] In October 2015, Mould appeared on BBC'sGardeners' 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 ofSir Anthony van Dyck. He also discussed the work of one of his favourite artists,Cedric Morris, who was also a greatplantsman.[33] Mould is a keen collector of Morris's work (for his private collection), and champions modern British artists in general; he cites theBloomsbury Group amongst his favourites.[4]
In April 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, Mould started recording a series of short videos he callsArt in Isolation, where the viewer is invited into his home of Duck End and given personal musings on one of his collected artworks.[34][35][36]
He is president of the wild plant conservation charityPlantlife.[37]
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