Tributes paid to London art curator killed in collision with lorry last week

Tributes have been paid to an up-and-coming art curator who died as a result of injuries sustained after he was involved in a collision with a lorry while cycling in East London last week. Daniel Cox, aged 28, who lived in Clapton, died at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel on Friday, two days after the collision in Dalston.

The Goldsmiths graduate had been working part-time at the PayneShurvell gallery in Shoreditch since last summer, whose owner James Payne told the Evening Standard that news of his death had come as a “massive blow.”

He added that Daniel had been so well thought of at the gallery that soon after his arrival there as an assistant, he was given the responsibility of curating an exhibition, Welcome To Paradise, by the Polish artist Anka Dabrowska.

Mr Payne said: "We all felt it today at the gallery and we will probably do some kind of tribute to him.

"He was very bright and within two months of starting I decided to let him curate a show. He did an amazing job, really spectacular. I think his career was going to change. He met so many artists through our gallery and everyone said he was really great. He was very outgoing and intelligent, particularly with art theory and practice.

"He was also very funny, the kind of person who lit up a room. Our artists got really attached to him. He was an exceptional person who will be terribly missed here. I really believe that he was a future star of the art world."

The 51-year-old driver of the lorry involved in the fatal accident has been bailed by police until July after being arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, while a coroner’s inquest into Daniel’s death has been opened and adjourned.

Daniel’s death came on the same day that Kate Cairns, whose sister Eilidh was killed after being hit by a lorry on Notting Hill Gate two years ago, issued an appeal under the See Me Save Me campaign for people to contact their MPs to urge them to support proposed European legislation designed to make the roads safer for cyclists.

The Evening Standard also reported that another cyclist was seriously injured yesterday in a collision with a petrol tanker in Kennington, South London.

The newspaper also repeated calls by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) for cyclist to sign its No More Lethal Lorries petition, which asks local authorities to give their drivers cycle awareness training.

The LCC’s communications officer Mike Cavenett told the Evening Standard: "At present cycle training for London lorry drivers is the exception.

"We aim to normalise this practice and want every lorry driver in London to have eventually done some form of cycle-awareness training."