Charles Saumarez Smith
Core Researcher
Charles Saumarez Smith is a writer, curator, art historian, and broadcaster. In 2021, he published The Art Museum in Modern Times, and he is now working on a biography of John Vanbrugh. He was trained as an architectural historian at Cambridge University, Harvard University, and the Warburg Institute, publishing his PhD thesis as The Building of Castle Howard. In 1982, he joined the staff of the Victoria and Albert Museum as an Assistant Keeper with special responsibility for V&A/RCA MA in the History of Design and was appointed Head of Research at the V&A in 1990. He was Director of the National Gallery from 2002 to 2007, and Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1994 to 2002 where he presided over the building of the Ondaatje Wing. During his time as Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts from 2007 to 2018, he was responsible for the renovation of the Keeper’s House and the opening of Burlington Gardens, the new buildings of the RA, in the lead-up to the RA’s 250th anniversary in 2018. He is currently chairman of The Royal Drawing School and publishes the blog https://charlessaumarezsmith.com/blog/.