Royal Academy Chief Executive to speak at Future Cities Forum
We are delighted that Dr Charles Saumarez Smith CBE, Secretary and Chief Executive, of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, will be speaking at our Future Cities Forum to be held at RIBA on 25th January 2018. He will be talking about the 250th celebrations and the opening of the new extension at the RA next year.
A British cultural historian specialising in the history of art, design and architecture, he is known for his contributions as a cultural commentator, an author of books and articles, a lecturer, and an academic, with regular appearances on television and radio. He has been a judge for the Stirling Prize for Architecture, the BP Portrait Award, the World Architecture Fair in Singapore and recently the Young Masters fine art prize .
He is widely sought after for his expertise on art, architecture and museums. Charles has been a trustee and board member of institutions including The Royal Drawing School, The Public Catalogue Foundation and Charleston, and Arts 4 Dementia, and is a visiting Professor of Cultural History at Queen Mary University of London. To see his upcoming appearances click here.
In his time at the Royal Academy of Arts, Charles has been responsible for the renovation of the Keeper’s House and the development of plans for Burlington Gardens, the new buildings of the RA, including a major fund-raising campaign and successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund in the lead-up to the RA’s 250th anniversary in 2018. In 2008, Charles was awarded a CBE.
Charles was Director of the National Gallery from 2002 to 2007, responsible for many major exhibitions, including Titian, Rubens, El Greco, late Caravaggio and Velazquez, and the Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1994 to 2002 where he rose to prominence for staging exhibitions by contemporary photographers, including Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon, Bruce Weber and fashion photographer Mario Testino, and where he presided over the building of the critically acclaimed Ondaatje Wing. Charles’ most celebrated success in his directorship at the National Gallery was the purchase of Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks in 2004 for £22 million.
Charles was educated at Marlborough and King’s College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar and was awarded a double first in History and History of Art. After graduating, he spent a year at Harvard University as a Henry Fellow studying at the Fogg Art Museum and then returned to the Warburg Institute as a postgraduate student.