There was an event last night to celebrate the long tenure of Amy Meyers as Director of the Yale Center for British Art.

It demonstrated – not that the demonstration was needed – what amazing close links she has maintained with all elements of the British art world: scholars, through her close involvement with the Paul Mellon Centre in London and its programme of publications; museum directors, with whom she has worked on joint exhibitions (the RA did a Paul Mellon exhibition in 2008); and artists, some of whom, like Rebecca Salter, Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, and now Eileen Hogan have been better recognised on the other side of the Atlantic than in the UK.

I have been particularly admiring of how she has mounted major scholarly exhibitions on relatively unexpected topics, like the recent exhibition of British Studio Pottery, and how supportive she has been of digital ventures, like the recently launched Watercolour World.

She started in July 2002, so it’s the end of an era.