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I was incredibly lucky to have studied A-Level History of Art at Dulwich College when Giles was Director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. He would take us into London where we were treated to gallery tours under his wing, imparting his expertise with much kindness & patience. I remember a Paris trip to see a fantastic exhibition of David paintings at the Louvre.
He managed to instil in me a lifelong love of visual arts & architecture, for which I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
He was as gentlemanly as he was learned, & I will not forget him. Thank you, Giles. -
Thinking of you every day and missing our weekly conversations, our dinners, and our travels together, I keep thinking of things I want to tell you, that would make you laugh and of all the gossip and mischief you would enjoy. Rest in peace my dear friend and fellow traveler.
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At his Memorial service tomorrow, I shall be remembering Giles' intelligent voice, laconic wit, probing humour and gentlemanly kindness over the past two decades. I enjoyed discussing our tastes in art and architecture. My son Edmund bears the name Giles thoughtfully proposed for him over tea at which we also discussed the title for his novel The Long Afternoon.
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I can't come tomorrow due to illness, but I shall remember you from the long ago days of Fundraising at Dulwich and the Travellers' Club. It is a wrench to lose friends, but your contributions have added lustre to all our lives.
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Inspired by him as a 17 year old, when he took a bunch of sixth formers from Dulwich under his wing to do more interesting things than schoolwork, such as read poetry by candlelight after hours in the Picture Gallery.. He was a man of empathy and kindness, generous in sharing his interests.
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Always an appreciative guest, fondly remembered. Departed for his own Long Afternoon
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An incredible shock Giles sudden passing, it seems so recent that he was sitting on my sofa here in Berlin, and our dining together. In researching his novels he spent long periods in Berlin, and though I knew him in London, his trips to Germany, and our Romantic literary to the Von Arnim residency programme and house at Schloss Wieperdorf, near Juteborg, stays with me....thoughts...in pectore
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It was such a pleasure and privilege to work with Giles at the University of Notre Dame, and I will miss him greatly.
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It is with enormous sadness I read of Giles' death. I will miss his sense of humour
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Firstly, my condolences for the family.
I had the fortune of meeting Giles Waterfield in The Attingham Summer School of 2006. We shared those three weeks with many exceptional people, but Giles stood out for his kindness and cheerfulness. -
It is with the greatest sadness that i learned that Giles had slipped away to somewhere that the 'good guys' go. He was a wonderful person to know, superb scholar, clear lucid writer, knowledgeable on art+museums, witty-wicked sense of humous and so much more. The loss is ours.
Marie Bourke, Guest Curator, National Gallery of Ireland -
This is still hard to believe. We shall all miss Giles enormously - he was a terrific teacher, writer and curator, totally committed to and engaged with his students. As well as his art historical writing, The Iron Necklace revealed him as a gifted novelist and we were thrilled when Giles wanted to do an event here earlier this year to celebrate the book. We feel privileged to have had him as a friend and supporter of the Institute.
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Giles was such a wise, witty and wonderful man; a very special soul. What a sad sad loss.
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Dear Giles!
It is so difficult to believe that we will never meet you again ! It was a great professional and human experience for me, to cooperate with you, in 1992, for the exchange of two exhibitions between the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Museum of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. "Treasures of a Polish King" and "Collection for the King".
In 2004 , I had a privilage to participate in The Royall Colleclion Study Course, directed by you, and subsequently in 2014, in The London House Course. It was also a great pleasure for me to organise in 2015, your lecture in the Museum of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, entitled "The People's Gallerys: Exhibitions and Museums in Victorian Britain"., you gave on the occasion of your visit in Warsaw for the presentation of the polish edition of your book "The Long Afternoon". It was the last time
when I and some others polish friends could enjoyed your company, your knowledge, your sense of humor, and your enthusiasm for the new projects.
During these visit, you also had an interview for the private TV Republica, where you talked about your newly-translated book.
Giles Waterfield - autor książki "Długie popołudnie" i Andrzej Dobosz - krytyk literacki, felietonista.
http://arch.telewizjarepublika.pl/Literatura-na-trzezwo-odc-87-201415,video,1715.html#.WCTkr_nhBpg
This Video will be the last memory of you for many friends, you have left in Poland, in Warsaw and specialy in the Museum of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
Dear Friend! We will miss you sorely! -
Giles - it was a pleasure knowing you & I only wish I could have known you better - you mixed your knowledge with charm, never making the other feel like the fool they might be. I was fortunate enough to attend two courses under your eagle eyes and indeed was very fortunate. I'm sure you will soon be organising courses in the next place and hope I can attend. God rest in peace
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Thanksgiving here in the United States. Very thankful I was able to attend the London House Course in April of this year, with Giles at the helm. I sat next to Giles at lunch the day when Michael Palin's son was speaking to us about Spitalfields. We ate decadent pudding. He listened to me about my project on Benedict Arnold and asked if I was going to write a book. It's been a strange year on both sides of the Atlantic. Having memories from Attingham and Giles make it a bit more bearable.
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Giles was a wonderful mentor and tutor to me at Dulwich and encouraged me to apply to study
at the Courtauld
I shall greatly miss his kindness and humour -
The most sad news came as a complete shock to me. At the beginning I could not believe. It was just a month or so that we said goodbye to each other. Than we were sending e-mails and apparently planning next meeting… I had just finished The Royal Collection Studies report and sent some thank you letters when I got the news. For the next few days I was completely devastated. Giles was so kind to me and we had such a good time in Windsor. When I had to pass the news to other colleagues from the Royal Castle in Warsaw, who knew Giles and who are The Attingham Trust alumni, I could barely speak.
Now, however, good memories returned. I am so happy and proud I could meet him. He was a charming man and great companion. I absolutely loved his sense of humour.
Strangely enough, now I also feel as if he was not dead. I have a sense that he is still alive… -
I had the chance to work with Giles developing a network of European Studio Museums over the last couple of years. The perfect project for someone with his genius for bringing people together. What a force for good he was.
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Giles gave me my first internship at Dulwich Picture Gallery many, many years ago and I kept in contact throughout the years. I think he gave me the job on the strength of my choice of Lapsang Souchong (without milk). Giles will be sadly missed, but he will be remembered for his charm, wit and generosity.
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Sending my condolences to Giles's family and friends. He was a wonderful tutor and made my time at the Courtauld truly special. I feel very fortunate to be one of his students. He is missed by many.
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Having been one of the lucky students attending the Attimgham courses and getting to know Giles both as a brilliant art historian and a very kind and humerous person. We kept in touch, he came to Switzerland, it was wonderful. I will miss him.
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Giles was inspiring in so many ways. Passionate about his field and a brilliant communicator, he was also able to maintain a wry degree of circumspection. And so often it made us laugh. I'll miss the frisson of anticipation of an imminent witticism as he caught sight me with his impish eye. This last happened just two days before his death, when I met him in the galleries of the Fitzwilliam, surrounded by an adoring group of students from the Courtauld, who were hanging on his every word, and aware of the privilege of being taught by someone who made learning such fun. A happy memory I shall treasure.
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Giles made me laugh whenever I met him. He was the best of teasers. I shall miss him terribly and can't believe we will never laugh together again.
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I will miss Giles so much. He made the year I spent in London earning my MA from the Courtauld one of the most memorable, rich years of my life. He was always funny, patient, insightful and encouraging as he took us around Europe, guided me on my thesis, and supported me after I graduated. What a loss for the art world and his family and friends!
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Extremely sad news. Everyone who met him was touched by his sincerity, kindness and sense of mischief, not to mention his great gifts as a writer of art-history and fiction. His achievements were immense - a great loss indeed.
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I'm very thankful to Giles for sharing his knowledge and inspriation with me as he did with so many others. I wish to express my deepest condolences to his family and close friends
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I still can't quite believe that he is gone. I keep thinking that the phone will ring and Giles - in that voice which blended the confidence that something amusing would happen when we met, with haste at snapping shut his briefcase for a lecture he was about to give - will say 'What are you doing tomorrow? Come to dinner. Seven o'clock'.
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Giles, close colleague, neighbour, confessor, friend: already I miss his steadfast support in our common endeavours, his discerning eye for what and who really mattered, his appetite for the old and energetic enthusiasm for the young and new, his gentle debunking of the world's inanities and his particular understated wit and turn of phrase. At home, the tea that turned to gin. And more. And so on and so forth, as he'd say.
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A kind, humorous, gentle man. It was his personality and enthusiasum which inspired his devoted Friends to support his work at Dulwich. He will be sadly missed.
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I send my deepest condolences to all Giles's family and friends. I was in touch with him recently via email and awaiting a letter from him. He was on the interview panel for one of my early posts and was an outstanding character and a fountain of erudite knowledge. So shocked to hear of his sudden passing.
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I feel as though I am coming late to these tributes but I feel the same sense of shock and grief as does everyone else. Giles' deeply thoughtful critiques, generous and always helpful advice and occasionally hilarious and pithy observations brought great wisdom and joy in my time at the National Trust and I can't imagine how we will all get on without him.
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Giles, a dozen years after taking an MA with you, I found myself telling my own MA students about you this week. About how I model my teaching after your example—taking them out into the world to look at things and talk to people; teaching them to be curious, energetic and generous in their scholarship—and entertaining!; and to recognize that the bonds of friendship formed in learning enrich everything. Thank you for your unswerving support, wry advice, a roof over my head whenever I needed it, and that last gin and tonic in your glorious backyard.
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Must have met Giles early in his Dulwich days, remember him coming to the Fitz to probe its history in the early 1990s: so many intersections, so many wise and witty observations, always benign but never anodyne. Who now will patrol and chronicle our territory? A sad loss indeed.
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Thank you, Giles, for all the inspiration, insights and fun you've given me. And thanks for coming to see me in Sweden and Italy and being such an entertaining and amused guest, even when I took you to folk dancing.
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After so many years of knowing each other, since school days, we were going to have a celebratory dinner with like-minded friends on St Andrew's Day but that is not to be.
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What a sad loss to the world of scholarship. His 'The People's Galleries' is a unique contribution to cultural history which could not be bettered. I knew him a long time and he was always delightful. An abiding memory is his account, given in several instalments, of the British monarchy from 1066 to the present day in the bus on the Royal Collections course. It was a tour de force of profound knowledge allied to a mischievous sense of humour He will be very much missed - a lovely man.
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I first met Giles nearly 20 years ago on the Summer School course. A man of enormous talent and a lovely wicked sense of humour! Sadly missed.
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I can't believe you've gone, Giles. You were in my Drawing-Room, perilously bouncing up and down with enthusiasm on a rather precarious sofa, only a couple of weeks ago. On the Royal Collections Study Course you turned didactisism into an addictive pleasure. You will be sorely missed for that and so many other things.
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Much has already been said, and there will be so much more to record about Giles's knowledge, so generously shared, his particularly acute but never mean wit, his delightful kindness and his profound influence, which, like so many others I was lucky enough to experience. But, dear Giles, you have left us far, far too early, and the world is a smaller, duller, contracted place without you.
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A wonderfully alert and attentive listener, Giles was always interested in what you were doing and, with that warm and quizzical smile and such a range of knowledge, his responses inevitably made you think afresh about any project . As admired and loved as much by friends in Los Angeles as those in London and elsewhere, he will be greatly missed by so many of us.
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His wit, knowledge, kindness and his whole character are missed greatly. I am most thankful for having met him. Sometimes dreams won’t come true.
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For Giles to have been taken from us so suddenly is deeply shocking. He was a wonderful person, wry, witty, profoundly knowledgeable and possessing great depth and insight. I shall always treasure my memories of touring Japan with him in 1986, and witnessing the transformations he wrought at Dulwich. His passing leaves a huge hole in British cultural and artistic life.
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I think about RCS in September 2016, how engaged Giles Waterfield still was - after 20 years of teaching the course. I think about his "announcements" in the bus... about his wide knowledge and his wonderful sense of humour.
We will all remember those days forever, and I feel so fortunate that I had the opportunity to follow the course under his direction. -
Giles Waterfield's lectures on art in English country houses were a highlight of the Attingham Summer School for me. After the course ended, he invited me to his house to look at a painting of an elderly Maori sitter that he'd been given when he was at Dulwich. He was genuinely curious about the work, and thought that being from New Zealand I could tell him more about it. It was a memorable evening; he seemed so pleased to learn more about the picture, and the sitter, a Maori chief called Patara Te Tuhi. He presented me with buttery asparagus for dinner, which we ate with our hands. It was a lovely encounter and I thought he was a fascinating person with a real sparkle in his eye. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. I'm sure he will be greatly missed.
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So, dear neighbour, we'll never again share a word at our gates; spend time with friends old and new, nor have the opportunity to pursue your mischievous idea for another novel. Thank you for making us so welcome in SW8
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On hearing the news from a mutual friend I felt a disquieting shock. Over many years I have loved the man and enjoyed the books. Like so many others, I cherish my experience of the Royal Collection Studies course, the whole experience held together by Giles's graciousness and wit. I also remember the 'bus lectures' with particular pleasure. Nothing ever seemed to go wrong, but no doubt that was at least in part due to the meticulous preparation.
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Very sad to hear of the passing of Giles. I was fortunate enough to be in his last intake on the History and Theory of the Art Museum MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art (2007), and I owe so much to him. His introductions laid the foundations of my career. His naughty sense of humour and generous nature shall be sorely missed.
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It is with deep sadness that I learn of the brutal death of Giles. I had much sympathy and esteem for him. His contribution to the conservation of the British heritage is considerable. Since Hattingham we had the opportunity to meet again in Paris, and we always had excellent moments of friendship.
I offer my sincere condolences to his family and all my sympathy to The Attingham Trust, in the person of its Executiv Director, Annabel Westman. -
Such a sad loss. I hold fond memories of the Royal Collections Study course, which Giles led with such style and humour. It was a pleasure to have had even the rare opportunities to spend time in his company.
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