About
Richard Hylton was born in London, England and studied Fine Art at Exeter College of Art and Design between 1987-1990. From the early 1990s, he became actively involved in the UK visual arts sector as an artist and then curator, working for organisations including, Oldham Art Gallery, Autograph (Association of Black Photographers) and University for the Creative arts. He has organised and facilitated a significant number of contemporary art exhibitions involving artists such as Barbara Walker, Ruth Maclennan, Anthony Key and Eugene Palmer. He has also produced several artists’ monographs and book works including The Holy Bible: Old Testament by David Hammons (co-produced with Virginia Nimarkoh).
In 2018, Hylton was awarded a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London for the thesis ‘A Labour of Love: The Politics of Presenting Contemporary Art as Part of Commemorations to Mark the United Kingdom’s Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807-2007’. Between 2019-2021 he was the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, followed by Lecturer in Contemporary Art, at SOAS, London between 2021 and 2025. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University in Philadelphia.
His writing has appeared in UK and US-based art magazines, peer-reviewed journals and publications such as Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, Art Monthly, Burlington Magazine, Panorama, The International Review of African American Art, The Routledge Companion to African American Art History, Failure: Documents of Contemporary Art Series, and Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance.
His first book-length study The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector, A Study of Policies, Initiatives and Attitudes 1976-2006 (2007), has been abridged in The Elgar Companion to the Arts and Global Multiculturalism (2025). Recent projects include Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little a limited edition spoken-word vinyl double LP about immigration and its legacies in Britain and Donald Rodney: Art, Race and the Body Politic (2025) published by Bloomsbury. He is Reviews Editor of Art Journal and serves on the international advisory board of Art History.
Exhibitions & Projects
African American Art in the International Arena
Writing and Publications
Biography
Over the past decade, Richard Hylton has also produced a substantial number of publications and commissioned new writing for exhibition catalogues, brochures and monographs such as The Best of Janette Parris and Doublethink: Donald Rodney. In 2002, after seven years of production, he co-produced with Virginia Nimarkoh, The Holy Bible: Old Testament, David Hammons’ first artist’s book. In 2014, he was one of five curator selectors for the international exhibition Where do I end and you begin staged by Edinburgh Art Festival. The exhibition involved over twenty artists and included existing and newly commissioned works, which explored historical and contemporary concepts of the ‘Commonwealth’, ‘common-wealth’ and the ‘commons’. Recent exhibitions include Anthony Key - Trespassing: New & Recent Works and Eugene Palmer Didn’t it Rain New Paintings.
As curator of Unit 2 Gallery, London Metropolitan University (2004-2009), Hylton was responsible for curating and facilitating a wide range of exhibitions including solo exhibitions by Mathew Houlding, Andrew Jackson, Anthony Key, Art & Language (curated by Chris Smith), Jim Medway, Victor Mount, Lady Lucy (curated by Eddie Chambers) Alicia Paz, Hana Sakuma, Ritu Sood, Rushton and Tyman, Salomé Voegelin and Barbara Walker. He was also involved in organising a number of public lecture events including What is Cultural Diversity? jointly organised by Eddie Chambers and involving Sarat Maharaj, Tamara Sivanandan and SAYITASITIS a two part series of artists’ talks on art and politics involving: John Jordan, Peter Fend, Virginia Nimarkoh, Emma Rushton and Derek Tyman, Robin Stott and Anthony Iles. His book The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector, A Study of Policies, Initiatives and Attitudes 1976-2006, offered an important and informed historical perspective on the British art establishment’s evolving engagement with Black British artists.
Between 1996-1999, as Fellow in Visual Arts, Hylton ran Gallery II, University of Bradford where he was responsible for staging numerous exhibitions and projects including: A Bradford Atlas: Lost Empires/Salt Air, Salt March/Industrial Steps -Tim Brennan, 1997, Heads of State -Faisal Abdu'allah, curated by Bisi Silva, 1997; Night Vision- Adam Chodzko 1998; In a City- Julia Spicer; Concealed Vision, Veiled Sisters Sabera Bham; This is History -Tam Joseph curated by Eddie Chambers, 1998; Mutant curated by Kate Smith. His other curated group exhibitions include Landscape Trauma in the Age of Scopophilia 2001, Discreet Charm 1996, Imagined Communities, 1996, Tampered Surface: Six Artists from Pakistan (with Alnoor Mitha) 1995, and Shifting Borders: What Does Europe Mean to You? 1992.