Spellcheck: Darbyshire Comes To Cambridge

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories.

Poor Matthew Darbyshire, how do you make a name for yourself if nobody can actually spell your name?

The up-and-coming British artist has secured top billing in the Fitzwilliam Museum’s new show, ‘Following Hercules: The Story of Classical Art’, and even got a plug in Ed Vaizey’s DCMS newsletter yesterday. But in both cases, he’s hailed as ‘Matthew Derbyshire’. Google this character and you find not an artist but a journeyman professional footballer who plays for Rotherham United.

Having your name misspelt is annoying at the best of times, but it must be particularly galling to be re-dubbed Matthew of Derbyshire by your home town – the artist was born in Cambridge in 1977.

Darbyshire lives in Kent, but he’s no stranger to the north. He staged an exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield in 2013 and has another exhibition opening at the Manchester Art Gallery next week – both of which got the spelling spot on. Perhaps the artist would like to relocate to avoid any further confusion for his champions down south.

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