The Wick Culture - Photographed by Dasha Tendita

Monday Muse

Interview: Director of The Women’s Art Collection Harriet Loffler

Interview

Harriet Loffler

Photography

Dasha Tendita

09 March 2026

Interview

Harriet Loffler

Photography

Dasha Tendita

09 March 2026

Since 2018, Harriet Loffler has been a driving force behind the Women’s Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, shaping its vision and amplifying its impact. As curator and now director, she has spearheaded acclaimed exhibitions including The Goddess, the Deity and the Cyborg and the major touring collaboration A Spirit Inside with the Ingram Collection and Compton Verney. From 2024, she has forged dynamic new partnerships with Frieze London and FAMM, founded by Christian Levett, expanding the Collection’s reach onto an international stage.

Before joining the College, Loffler gained an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, and from 2009 to 2018 worked as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, where she led ambitious exhibitions, publications, and collection development. Her collaborations span institutions including Tate and Museum of Modern Art. A regular voice on conference platforms and public art panels, she also served as a Trustee of the David Parr House (2019–2021). An insightful curator, leader and thinker, and also, a mother of three, Loffler is a true inspiration. We find out more about championing women artists and why it matters, the lessons she’s learned along the way – and her exciting new exhibition, Relative Ties, which opened last week.

THE WICK: What does a typical Monday look like for you?

Harriet Loffler: I’m a mother of three daughters so my Mondays often start with getting them all ready and where they need to be. I then cycle across town to Murray Edwards College which is located just a few minutes away from Kettle’s Yard. My working days rarely look the same – I am often writing proposals for upcoming projects, having a meeting with a potential partner or donor, speaking to a lender, carrying out research into an artist in the collection. I wear lots of hats in this role so no two days are alike. My husband Michael collects the kids then we all meet back at home for supper. I love to cook and appreciate this fleeting moment of togetherness.

TW: You are the Director of the Murray Edwards Women’s Art Collection – the largest in Europe. What has been your biggest achievement with this collection?

HL: I have been working with the collection for over 7 years and it has been a humbling and exhilarating experience to see it go from strength to strength. I had a wonderful time working with Spirit Now London to acquire works by Shafei Xia, Bambou Gili and Asemahle Ntlonti from Frieze London in 2024. For all of these artists it was the first time their work entered a UK public collection mirroring some of the first works to enter the Collection by Maud Sulter and Lubaina Himid.

I think my personal achievement has to be the upcoming Relative Ties exhibition that explores the work of three generations of women artists from the illustrious Nicholson family, from the early twentieth century to today. On display will be paintings, wallpaper, fabrics, rugs, stencils and works on paper – many of which have never been on public display –by Mabel Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, EQ Nicholson and Louisa Creed. As part of the exhibition I have commissioned the artist Katie Schwab to explore the creative legacies that are inherited through matrilineal lines. I am thrilled to be publishing a book to accompany the exhibition – the first to bring together these remarkable artists – that was selected by Christie’s as one of their recommended art books for 2026.

TW: When you are looking for new talent to support through your curatorial programmes, how does your hunt begin?

HL: My curatorial career has been long already so I often like to look back at the artists I might have worked with or encountered in the past. I have a small office, but I’m surrounded by books and catalogues of exhibitions and biennales which feels like an expanded memory box. I like to revisit these to consider artists across generations. I also love reading Frieze, Art Monthly for reviews of shows I’m not always able to see. When an artist I admire recommends another artist – I’m keen to follow their lead. This is how the collection evolved from women artists recommending other women artists so at its centre is a network of relationships between women.

TW: Your collection champions remarkable contemporary voices. What draws you to a work at first glance?

HL: The Women’s Art Collection is displayed across Murray Edwards College, one of two college for women at the University of Cambridge – it engulfs you completely, from the dining room and walkways to the corridors and the café. This means I encounter the collection on a daily basis and in different seasons and with fluctuating emotions. Works I may have once passed by, later become a focal point for my attention. I love how each and every piece has a message to convey – we just need to slow down and tune into them.

“I love how each and every piece has a message to convey – we just need to slow down and tune into them.”

Above Photographed by Dasha Tendita

TW: What has been the most surprising lesson you’ve learned since becoming a curator?

HL: I’ve learned that a key lesson for any curator is the need to become a fundraiser with grace and integrity, and to not be afraid of asking for support. Curators are the most passionate advocates for a project, and being able to convey that passion to inspire others to share your vision and help realise it is a crucial skill. I’m keen to establish an acquisitions fund and to create a bespoke gallery space, so securing support for these exciting initiatives is vital. But it’s really about creating a network of friends and supporters who enjoy being part of an ‘inner circle’ and are as passionate about the work and impact of the WAC as we are.

TW: Cambridge carries a deep academic legacy. How do you keep a collection dynamic and forward-looking within such a globally renowned environment, rooted in history and exceptional intellect?

HL: We have an incredible work in one of our collection displays by Suzanne Treister that has the instruction ‘Discover the Secrets of the Universe’ painted on the surface of the canvas with tiny pixels of paint. It was made using the paint app from an early desktop computer uniting the digital and the handmade. I love how the architects for the building, Chamberlin, Powell and Bon (who went on to design the Barbican Centre) were looking at observatories in their plans for Murray Edwards College as well as Renaissance architecture. Hiranya Peiris is a Professor in Astrophysics and alum of the College who talks about how the more historic colleges tend to look to the past – whereas the more modern colleges such as ours (that was founded in 1954) tend to look to the future. The building was designed to encourage the women students to look up and thereby aim high – which fits so succinctly with Suzanne’s painting. The students adore this work and even made tote bags featuring it.

Thanks to academics such as Professors Lydia Hamlett and Amy Tobin we are seeing the collection take a much more central role in learning, teaching and research. We have such a unique context of being a women’s college – I’m always keen to harness the interdisciplinary element to our work, as well as unlock something of the University for the general public.

TW: The Women’s Art Collection has long championed women artists. In 2026, what feels most urgent about that mission?

HL: We are fortunate to have this incredible collection which is open to the public every day. It’s important to remember that it wasn’t that long ago that women artists weren’t included in the canonical texts on art history so there is a lot of work to do to research and promote women artists across the generations. I think the most pressing issue is how to support women artists with our platform, but also financially as they need the time, space and money to make new work.

TW: If you could add any artist to the collection who would it be and why?

HL: Sonia Boyce is an artist who was included on the handwritten list of women artists who were asked to donate to the newly established collection in 1991. Sonia visited us recently and it became apparent that the letter never reached her. Later this year we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Mary Kelly residency that seeded the idea for the collection, so we are keen to complete the circle by acquiring one of Sonia’s sensational works.

TW: What’s your favourite Culturally Curious spot in Cambridge if you want to take a break and find inspiration?

HL: In 2017, I co-founded Something in Common Cambridge with Monica Yam, Lotte Juul Peterson and Caroline Wendling to establish a place to gather. It has grown so much, with new people coming on board including Megan Hunter, Anna Brownsted and Anna Taylor and we now host monthly cross-cultural events, open to all, that champions artists, writers, musicians and more. It is the most incredible group and I find it endlessly enriching being in the company of such brilliant Cambridge-based creatives.

TW: What advice would you give to someone hoping to build a career in curating today?

HL: Find your people. I have often been the only contemporary art curator within a museum and have long treasured the network of artists, gallerists, curators, writers and journalists who become an expanded professional family. Having a supportive peer network is so important to one’s growth personally and professionally.

TW: The book you are recommending right now?

HL: I always recommend Rebecca Birrell’s book This Dark Country, that skilfully analyses the still life women artists associated with the Bloomsbury group. Her writing is exquisite and she has the most incredible ability to read a painting as a text that she then artfully decodes. I am keenly awaiting her debut novel, Venus, Vanishing this summer.

TW: Who is your ultimate Monday Muse and why?

HL: I mentioned before the importance of a network and I count Sepake Angiama as a key person in this constellation. We met when part of the peer-led youth engagement group Raw Canvas at Tate Modern over 20 years ago now and connected again on the RCA Curating Course. Having worked abroad for many years she is now Director of iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) and remains a real inspiration to me. She is a beacon who collaborates openly and thinks deeply. A true visionary who has the most infectious laugh of anyone I know!