Nicola Swash Hardie’s love of the arts began early on as a child actor with The Royal Shakespeare Company where she spent several years juggling textbooks with the excitement and thrill of appearing on the professional stage.

Graduating from Brunel University with First Class Honours in Art History she gained a post graduate diploma in Arts and Television production from Sheffield Hallam and moved her allegiance from performance to the visual arts.

With a long-held desire to work in the industry, Nicola took up a graduate post as a lecturer and guide at Historic Royal Palaces and taught part-time courses in Art History and Cultural Studies at her old university.

She was later invited to join The Royal Household as Administrator for a new high-tech Royal Collection Trust Paintings Conservation studio based in the Home Park, Windsor Castle.

Nicola remained with the RCT for 15 years, assisting the organisation and schedule of restoration works for the oil paintings department – a collection of some 8000 works – and preparing and overseeing the transportation and hanging of paintings within the Royal Houses and to galleries worldwide.

Her specialist work in early digital infrared reflectography supported and assisted leading curators and conservators to identify unattributed paintings in the Collection; a number of these images feature in Royal Collection catalogues and major art publications.

Nicola’s love and appreciation of the arts continues; despite having worked primarily with Old Masters, she is also hugely enthusiastic about the continued development and motivation of young people to create modern, original and illuminating works of art.