non-executive director of major betting firm Coral Ladbrokes and in 1995 he became non-executive chairman of property company Development Securities plc. He lectured on English and American literature at Harvard and University College, London. He also held the unpaid post of Provost of the Royal College of Art from 1985 to 1996. Gowrie opened the first Bacon exhibition in the Soviet Union, in 1988 at the Central House of Artists in Moscow, for which he also wrote the catalogue introduction. He also made a number of television appearances, including in a 2017 documentary on the Anglo-Irish artist Francis Bacon, a programme on the Irish art collector Garech Browne, and a 2009 documentary on artist and British folk revivalist and blues pioneer Rory McEwen, the Poet Laureate. He also appeared in a programme on the Royal National Theatre, as well as multiple episodes of Question Time in the 1980s. Gowrie was a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Together with Rowan Williams and Daniel Day-Lewis, he was also a patron of the Wilfred Owen Association, formed in 1989 to commemorate the life and work of the renowned First World War poet Wilfred Owen. He was a founding director of the British Fund for the National Gallery of Ireland (later the International Friends of the National Gallery of Ireland), from 1996 to 2000, rejoining in 2003, serving as co-chairman, and stepping down in 2011. In 2008, he accepted an invitation from CEO Farad Azima to chair the newly-formed Advisory Board of the Iran Heritage Foundation. He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the London Symphony Orchestra. Writing Early writings Gowrie published one volume of poetry in his 20s, A Postcard from Don Giovanni, after a period working as an assistant to American poet Robert Lowell, and later contributed the chapter on 20th century painting to a book on British painting, The Genius of British Painting, published in 1975. In 1987 he published a biography and artistic profile of the artist Derek Hill, Derek Hill: An Appreciation. Health and later writings In the summer of 1999, having been diagnosed with a serious heart condition, he received a heart transplant at Harefield Hospital and, after a long recovery, left hospital in 2000; his health remained frail thereafter. He became friends with his principal surgeon, Magdi Yacoub, and chaired the institute named for him. Following his release from hospital, he published