Alexander "Sandy" Nairne

Alexander "Sandy" Nairne (born 1950) is a British arts administrator and writer and since 2003 Director of the National Portrait Gallery. The son of an Oxford academic Nairne studied at the University of Oxford in the early 1970s and gained an Oxford Blue as a rower. Nairne came into contact with Nicholas Serota working at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford in 1976–8 and the two have formed a lifelong professional partnership – one of the most significant in the post-war British Art World. After a period as an Assistant Curator at the Tate Gallery (1978–1980) Nairne was appointed Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts a position he held until 1985. At the ICA Nairne was notable for his efforts to promote artists from Britain's Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities. In 1986 wrote the television documentary series The State of the Arts for Channel 4. The series and Nairne's accompanying book acts as a quasi-appendix to the Robert Hughes series The Shock of the New and provides an uncritical survey of contemporary visual arts from America and Europe from the end of the 1960s. As a snapshot of this type the series and book have dated very quickly.

In 1988 Nairne was appointed as Director of the Visual Arts Department of the Arts Council. In this capacity Nairn oversaw the re-invigoration of the British Art Show and the establishing of the Institute of New International Visual Arts as permanent organisation to promote culturally diverse projects. After second break from 1992 to 1996 during which he co-edited the book 'Thinking about Exhibitions' 1995 a review of international practice in contemporary art exhibitions, Nairne became Director of Programmes for the Tate Gallery under Serota. In this capacity Nairne was responsible for the restructuring of the Tate's collection administration in preparation for the opening of Tate Modern and the redevelopment of the original Tate Gallery in Millbank as Tate Britain. Following the debacle of Lars Nittve's short period as Director of Tate Modern it was widely held that Nairne was being groomed as a successor to Nicholas Serota so it was a surprise to many when it was announced that he was moving to the National Portrait Gallery in 2003.

Nairne is married to the Art Historian Lisa Tickner with whom he has two sons. His younger brother Andrew Nairne is also an arts administrator.