Currently based in the UK, Anna Wallace-Thompson is Head of Proposals London & Global Proposals Editor at Sotheby’s. Prior to this, she worked at Condé Nast Britain, where she was Deputy Editor of contract publishing, working closely with clients such as Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, Frieze art fair and Swarovski. As an arts writer specialising in Middle Eastern art and culture as well as tech-based artistic practices, Wallace-Thompson previously spent 10 years with Canvas, the premier magazine for Middle Eastern art and culture. She also edits The Journal, produced by the non-profit Atassi Foundation to promote Syrian art and artists worldwide.
Wallace-Thompson also has experience in PR, both within an agency as well as in the capacity of communications director for London-based galleries Kashya Hildebrand and Pi Artworks, and has consulted on media strategy for galleries and produced a wide variety of press and catalogue texts.
Wallace-Thompson has written for magazines such as Alef, Artforum, Artsy, Art in America, Art Review, The Art Newspaper, Canvas, Contemporary Practices, Frieze, Harper's Bazaar Art Middle East and RA Magazine among others. Book projects cover a wide spectrum, and include sub-editing Alcove: Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists (Kaph Books, 2024), co-editing The Art of Cooking: A Contemporary Twist on Georgian Fare (Sotheby’s, 2019) and the editorial creative concept for K11 Musea: A Book of Modern Muses (Condé Nast, 2019).
Something of a global nomad, Wallace-Thompson grew up predominantly in the UAE. She received her BA in English Philology from Helsinki University (2003) and an MA in English Literature from Sydney University (2006).She has also lived in Australia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Scotland and Singapore.
When she isn’t wrangling proposals or working on freelance editorial projects, Wallace-Thompson tries to chip away (at the speed of a snail on a glacier) at her first novel. Her short stories have been published sporadically here and there, including The Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual and the Nowhere Magazine Annual.
*Photograph courtesy Joe Madeira