Everything about Charles Saumarez Smith totally explained
Charles Robert Saumarez Smith CBE (born
May 28,
1954 in
Redlynch,
England) is a
British art historian. He was Director of the
National Portrait Gallery from 1994. From 2002 to 2007 he was director of the
National Gallery and is currently Secretary and Chief Executive of the
Royal Academy of Arts. He was formerly President of the
Museums Association.
Biography
A descendant of the 19th-century
Archbishop of Sydney William Saumarez Smith, Charles Saumarez Smith was born in a rectory in the
Wiltshire village of Redlynch, near
Salisbury. He was educated at
Marlborough College, where a
Gainsborough portrait belonging to the school first awakened his interest in art. He then studied at
King's College, Cambridge, gaining a double first, before receiving his doctorate from the
Warburg Institute,
London, in 1986. His thesis was entitled "
Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle and the architecture of
Castle Howard". He was a Fellow at
Harvard and Christie's Research Fellow in the History of Applied Arts at
Christ's College, Cambridge.
For four years Saumarez Smith worked at the
Victoria and Albert Museum in
London as head of research before becoming director of the
National Portrait Gallery in 1994. There he more than doubled visitor figures by staging exhibitions by contemporary artists, including the fashion photographer
Mario Testino. He also presided over the building of an extension to the NPG in 2000, the Ondaatje Wing. From 2001 to 2002 Saumarez Smith held the
Slade Professorship at
Oxford University, where he lectured on "The State of the Museum".
Saumarez Smith was passed over for major managerial jobs at the V&A, the
Tate Gallery and the
British Museum
2006 saw the opening of a new ground-floor entrance hall at the National Gallery designed by Dixon Jones architects (who had also designed the Ondaatje Wing) although this project was begun under Saumarez Smith's predecessor
Neil MacGregor. In 2007, news broke of a power struggle between Peter Scott, head of the Gallery's board of trustees, and the director; at the same time it became known that Saumarez Smith was applying for the newly-created post of Secretary and Chief Executive at the
Royal Academy. He resigned from the National Gallery on 26 July, 2007, and has been succeeded by Martin Wyld, head conservator at the Gallery, as acting director until a permanent director is appointed in 2008.
Saumarez Smith has written books on Castle Howard and
18th century interior design, and contributed biographies on
Quentin Bell and
Philip McCammon Core to the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In addition, he's a Visiting Professor at
Queen Mary, University of London and an occasional panelist on the
BBC's
Newsnight Review.
He was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the
2008 New Year Honours.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Charles Saumarez Smith'.
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