Tom Honeyman
British curator, art dealer and museum director (1891-1971)
Thomas John Honeyman (10 June 1891 – 5 July 1971) was an art dealer and gallery director, becoming the most acclaimed director of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow.
Born near Queen's Park, Glasgow, the son of a life insurance manager Thomas Honeyman (1858–1934) and Elsie Smith (1860–1937), Tom Honeyman studied medicine, graduating at Glasgow University prior to distinguished service with the RAMC overseas in the First World War. He practised medicine in the East End of Glasgow, before becoming an art dealer in Glasgow with Alex Reid & Lefevre before moving three years later to London to be based at the Lefevre Gallery.
In Glasgow and London he met many great artists, and when Glasgow Corporation were looking for a new director for their Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, they consulted Honeyman about possible candidates. He eventually decided he might like the job, taking up the post in 1939. Honeyman went on to make an enormous contribution to artistic and cultural life of Glasgow during his 15 years in the post. He greatly increased the standing and profile of the Glasgow Art Galleries & Museums through high-profile publicity and successful exhibitions which, for example, brought queues to see Van Gogh's paintings, and numerous other special exhibitions.
His art purchases were prudent and wise, buying works which have subsequently gained enormously in value. In 1952, Honeyman became famous for his purchase of Salvador Dalí's Christ of St. John of the Cross.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Honeyman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.