7th Annual Conference: “The Catalogue Raisonné: Representing the Unrepresented”

Mishcon de Reya, Africa House, London

January 8th, 2026

Tickets are now on sale for our annual conference, to be held on January 8th in London. This year’s theme is “The Catalogue Raisonné: Representing the Unrepresented”. We will bring together international voices from art, museums, publishing, academia, law, and the art market to ask questions and spark new dialogues. It is an excellent opportunity for colleagues to meet and exchange ideas during and in between panels, during lunch and drinks. Sharing expertise and knowledge with each other about cataloguing art is a key part of ICRA’s mission. There are limited in-person tickets available so don’t delay - but if you’re unable to join us in person, online tickets holders can access a livestream on the day.

Our opening keynote speaker is Griselda Pollock (Professor of Social and Critical Histories of Art, @universityofleeds), who will help us rethink anew the critical challenges around traditional methodologies of the catalogue raisonné. Throughout the day we’ll be asking: who gets a catalogue raisonné - and who doesn’t? Who receives funding, and who gets left behind? What alternative support systems exist for historically marginalized artists? What are museums’ and foundations’ roles in cataloguing these unrepresented voices?  How can AI and emerging tech reshape research and documentation of invisible voices in the arts?

Confirmed speakers include:

-       Christa Blatchford (Executive Director, Joan Mitchell Foundation),

-       Mary Jane Jacob (Artistic Director, Abakanowicz Arts & Culture Foundation)

-       Tom Stammers (Reader in Art & Cultural History, Courtauld Institute)

-       Susanna Pettersson (CEO, Kulttuurirahasto/ Finnish Cultural Foundation)

-       Douglas Dreishpoon (Director of Catalogue Raisonné, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation)

-       Susanna Avery-Quash (Senior Research Curator, History of Collecting, National Gallery, London)

-       Christopher Riopelle (Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, National Gallery, London)

-       Lynn Rother (Professor for Provenance Studies at Leuphania University of Lüneburg/ Adjunct Curator for Provenance, MoMA)

-       Margaret Lee (Cindy Sherman Legacy Project)

-       Anne Helmreich (Director, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian)

-       Renee Adams (Professor of Finance, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

-       Lucy Myers (Managing Director, Lund Humphries)

-       Irene Walsh (Independent art historian, Scholar of Lillie P Bliss bequest to MoMA)

The conference will be generously hosted once again by Mishcon de Reya LLP in their London conference spaces, with further generous support from Christie’s and tech agency Cogapp

🗓️ Stay tuned for the full programme lineup.

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Visit to Louise Bourgeois' Easton Foundation

Image: Louise Bourgeois in the backyard of her home, New York, 1980. Photo: Mark Setteducati, © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Further to the ICRA December 2023 Annual Conference ‘On Paper’ and the presentation by Sewon Kang, archivist and cataloguer of Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books, ICRA would like to invite members to join Sharon Hecker and Matthew Stephenson on a visit to the Easton Foundation and townhouse of Louise Bourgeois on 3rd May at 10.30am at 349 West 20th Street, New York.

Sewon will lead the visit, which usually lasts an hour. Due to the intimate nature of Bourgeois’s house, places are limited to ten places and offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Easton Foundation was established by Louise Bourgeois in the 1980s as a non-profit and charitable organization. Upon her death in 2010, at the age of 98, Bourgeois bequeathed her home and an adjacent townhouse to become the Foundation’s center.

For select visitors, the Foundation is pleased to present a comprehensive survey of photographs, exhibition announcements, and personal writings from Bourgeois’s life and career. These documents hint at the breadth and scope of the Louise Bourgeois Archive, and provide unique insight to the artist’s creative process. A selection of Bourgeois’s artworks from the Foundation’s extensive collection will also be on display, and the backyard sculpture garden will be open, weather permitting. In addition, Louise Bourgeois’s home, where many works were conceived or made, will be accessible by guided tour.