Charles Saumarez Smith

For other people named Charles Smith, see Charles Smith (disambiguation).

Charles Saumarez Smith
Born	Redlynch, Wiltshire
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Art historian and museum director
Spouse	Romilly Le Quesne Savage
Children	Ferdinand Saumarez Smith Otto Saumarez Smith
Parent(s)	William Hanbury Saumarez Smith Alice Elizabeth Harness Raven

Dr. Charles Robert Saumarez Smith (born May 28, 1954 in Redlynch, England) is a British art historian. From 2002 to 2007 he was director of the National Gallery; on September 1 he will become 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 before becoming the director of the National Gallery in 2002. The main success of his directorship has been the purchase of Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks in 2004 for £22 million, raised by a successful public appeal. However, few other major acquisitions have been made by the National Gallery under Saumarez Smith due to the inflated prices now commanded by Old Master paintings. He has more than once condemned the British government under Tony Blair for not giving more money towards museum funding.

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 will resign from the National Gallery on 26 July 2007, where he will be 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 is a Visiting Professor at Queen Mary, University of London and an occasional panelist on the BBC's Newsnight Review.

External links

• Portraits of Charles Saumarez Smith at the National Portrait Gallery, London