Jean Wainwright is an art historian, critic and curator living in London. Her areas of expertise are in contemporary art and photography, with particular reference to Andy Warhol, on whose life and works she is an internationally recognised expert. As a writer and academic she has published extensively in the contemporary arts field, contributing to numerous catalogues and books as well as appearing on television and radio programmes (including Woman’s Hour, Today Programme, Channel Four and the BBC). Her Audio Arts Archive (begun in 1996) is still continuing and to date she has interviewed over a 1,800 international artists, makers, photographers, filmmakers and curators, 177 of her published interviews conducted for Audio Arts went online at the Tate in 2014.
Her international exhibitions include My Search for Andy Warhol’s Voice 2011 & 2012, Ship to Shore: Art and the Lure of the Sea, 2014, Gestures of Resistance, 2017, The Data Battlefield, 2017, Powerful Tides, 400 Years of Chatham and the Sea 2018, and Another Spring 2018.
Wainwright’s practice as an art critic most prominently features interviews with international artists, photographers, filmmakers and curators. Her interviews can be found in the numerous books and catalogues she has contributed to, and her work has been published extensively in the media, including Audio Arts, The Art Newspaper, The Art Newspaper TV (for which she won an IVCA award), Art World, The Guardian, Art Review and Hotshoe.
As a presenter and interviewer, Wainwright has covered all the major art fairs and events over the past 15 years, including Frieze (London), Art Basel in Miami and Basel, the Venice Biennale and The Armory (New York).
Wainwright has also collaborated on a number of corporate arts projects for Futurecity, including Heathrow Terminal 2 (Slipstream), Grosvenor Waterside, Gilt of Cain, Ebbsfleet Valley and BT Connected World. She is also a consultant for Quintessentially Art. She is also a committee member of Fast Forward Women in Photography.
