Ralph Wornum

Ralph Nicholson Wornum (1812–1877) was an English artist, art historian and administrator. He was Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery of London from 1855 until his death.

He was the son of Robert Wornum the pianoforte maker, and was born at Thornton, near Norham, Northumberland, on 29 December 1812. Having studied at University College London in 1832, he gave up plans to read for the bar, and attended the studio of Henry Sass. In 1834 he went abroad, spending six years in visiting galleries, in Munich, Dresden, Rome, Florence, and Paris.

At the end of 1839 Wornum settled in London as a portrait-painter.Thomas Sibson came to study with him. He was honourably mentioned in the Westminster Hall cartoon competition of 1840. In 1848 Wornum was appointed lecturer on art to the government schools of design, and lectured around England. Among his topics was Islamic design, and he suggested that his students should visit Owen Jones's reconstruction of the Alhambra at the Sydenham Crystal Palace.

In 1852 he was appointed librarian and keeper of casts to the Government schools of design, then under the direction of the Board of Trade. A reorganisation created the Department of Practical Art, and Henry Cole sent Wornum on a fact-finding mission to France.

In December 1854 he was chosen as successor to Thomas Uwins and George Saunders Thwaites, as jointly Keeper of the National Gallery and Secretary to the trustees, on the recommendation of Sir Charles Eastlake, a reforming move in the administration of the Gallery, with a large increase in the salary. Eastlake himself was appointed Director of the Gallery in March 1855, and in the following July were issued Treasury minutes entirely reconstituting the administration. In 1860−1 Wornum was chiefly instrumental in getting the Turner collection, which had been banished first to Marlborough House, and then to South Kensington (1856–60), restored to its place in the National Gallery, in accordance with the terms of the artist's bequest. Wornum worked with John Ruskin on this project. Turner's legacy included some drawings considered obscene; Wornum burned them, and Ruskin watched him do it.

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