Kate Heard is Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, Royal Collection Trust. Her previous publications include George IV: Art and Spectacle (2019), The First Georgians: Art & Monarchy (2014) and High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson (2013).
"""Heard provides a thorough account of the eventful history of Holbein's portrait album. . . Heard acknowledges the inspiration provided by the touring exhibition Holbein and the Court of Henry VIII (1993) and the wisdom and guidance of its curator, the late Jane Roberts, Librarian and Curator of the Print Room at Windsor. The present work is a welcome successor to that project""-- ""Journal of the History of Collections"" ""Dr Kate Heard's catalogue is scholarly, accessible, and extremely well illustrated.""-- ""The Critic"" ""Accompanying an exceptional exhibition of Hans Holbein the Younger's drawings at the Queen's Gallery in London, is a small catalogue written by the show's curator, Kate Heard. Holbein's paintings are delightful, but his preparatory drawings of the same sitters are genuinely moving, such is their realism and intimacy, transporting us back almost 500 years. There are profiles of the sitters--the Tudor period's movers and shakers--but where the catalogue is more interesting is in its details of Holbein's methods (embellishing certain cheekbones) or things you may have missed ('a touch of greenish watercolour in the eyes').""-- ""The Art Newspaper, top art books of 2023"""