Professor James Stevens Curl has established an international reputation for wit combined with compassion, thoroughness of research, and lucidity of style. He is the author of many scholarly books, including major studies of Georgian, Victorian, and Modern Architecture. On the occasion of its annual Prizes & Medals Ceremony (2017), the British Academy awarded him the President’s Medal for “outstanding service to the cause of the humanities and social sciences” in his wider study of the History of Architecture, covering a vast range of periods and topics, in Britain and Ireland. The event at the museum sees the launch of the Professor’s new book ‘The Life and Work of Thomas Downes Wilmot Dearn’.