Charles Saumarez Smith to leave the RA and join Blain|Southern

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Charles Saumarez Smith steps down from the Royal Academy | Charles Saumarez Smith is to step down as secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy in London and become senior director of Blain|Southern gallery. Saumarez Smith joined the RA in 2007, having previously headed the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery. He will stay in his current role until the end of the year and join Blain|Southern next spring.

Tuesday Smillie to be Rose Art Museum artist in residence | The artist Tuesday Smillie has been awarded the Rose Art Museum’s Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award for 2018–19. Smillie’s work employs a range of media to engage with transgender-feminist activism and politics; she is best known for her textile pieces and large works that resemble protest banners.

Rhana Devenport appointed director of Art Gallery of South Australia | The Art Gallery of South Australia has announced the appointment of Rhana Devenport as director. Devenport, who will take up the post in October, is the first female director in the institution’s 137-year history. She has been director of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki since 2013.

Recommended reading | Lauren Weinstein talks about juggling the pressures of motherhood and art in a visual feature for the New Yorker. Visiting Joan Jonas’s exhibition at Tate Modern for the London Review of Books, Brian Dillon is reminded that her work ‘has always been both magical and bracing’. Jenny Stevens writes for the Guardian about the beauty of ‘slow looking’ in galleries and museums. And in Corriere della Sera, Gianluigi Colin looks back at the life and work of the painter Giancarlo Vitali, who has died at the age of 88 (Italian language article).