London
In accordance with Article 57 of the Treaty of Rome, which requires EC countries to recognise each other’s formal qualifications, thus allowing citizens of one country to work freely in another (see The Art Newspaper’s EC supplement No. 17, April 1992, pp. 7-10), the Victoria and Albert Museum has appointed a German, Dr Norbert Jopek, to a senior post in its Sculpture department. Indeed, of the six candidates interviewed , three were German, one was Dutch and only two were British. Paul Williamson, head of the department, attributes the shortage of suitable British candidates to the current disfavour with which object-based studies are viewed by British universities.
Dr Jopek, forty-one, completed his doctorate on German fifteenth-century alabasters in 1984, and has worked at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and for the episcopal administration and Amt für Denkmalpflege (protection of monuments) in Trier. His area of responsibility at the V&A will be Northern European sculpture between 1450 and 1700, with special emphasis on German polychromed wood sculpture.