Luke Syson is an English museum curator and

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

. Since 2019, he has been the director of the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities University museum, museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, prior to which he held positions at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

(1991–2002), the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

(2002–2003), the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

(2003–2012) and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

(2015–2019). In 2011 he curated the acclaimed

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

exhibition at the National Gallery: ''Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan'', which included his pivotal role in the controversial authentication by the National Gallery of da Vinci's '' Salvator Mundi''.

Education and early career

Syson received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

from the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. The art collection is known particularly for ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

and he continued studying there for three years in the PhD program; his focus was on the 15th-century royal portraiture of

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, and

Mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...

. His first professional positions was as the curator of medals at the

from 1991 to 2002. Towards the end of his tenure, he served as co-curator for the ''Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court'' exhibition in 2001 and co-created a new permanent gallery: "Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century", which opened in 2003. From 2002 to 2003 he subsequently served as a senior curator at the

, where had a leading role in creating the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries.

National Gallery

He joined the

in 2003, where he was the head of research and curator of Italian Paintings before 1500. At the National Gallery, Syson led a successful effort in obtaining

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...

's '' Madonna of the Pinks''. Syson was the curator of the ''Renaissance Siena: Art for a City'' exhibition in 2007. In 2011, Syson was the head curator for the National Gallery's controversial ''Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan'' exhibition, which was a major success. The exhibition centered around works from Leonardo's first Milanese period (), featuring an unprecedented amount of major works by Leonardo in one location, including the ''

Portrait of a Musician The ''Portrait of a Musician'' is an Unfinished creative work, unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to . Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in Oil painting, oils, and perhaps temp ...

'', the '' Lady with an Ermine'', '' La Belle Ferronnière'', '' Madonna Litta'', '' Saint Jerome in the Wilderness'', '' Salvator Mundi'' and both the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

and London versions of the ''

Virgin of the Rocks The ''Virgin of the Rocks'' (), sometimes the ''Madonna of the Rocks'', is the name of two paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, with a composition which is identical except for several significant de ...

''. Through the Leonardo exhibition and efforts prior, Syson was pivotal in the full authentication of ''Salvator Mundi'' to

(i.e. an "autograph work"), having five Leonardo experts inspect the painting at the museum. Author Ben Lewis later suggested in ''The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting'' that Syson had overstated the degree of agreement among the experts, with Carmen C. Bambach expressing skepticism after the museum announced the attribution. In the 2021 documentary '' The Lost Leonardo'', one of the other experts invited by Syson, Maria Teresa Fiorio, denied that she had ever authenticated the painting, saying: "Nobody asked me a formal opinion about this painting". In 2019, '' The Art Newspaper'' reported that it was "surprising that Syson's entry does not at least allude to the suggestion by other scholars that parts of the picture may have been painted by assistants, even if he went on to dismiss this idea". In November 2021, the Prado in Spain formally downgraded the attribution of the painting in their da Vinci exhibition catalog from "by Leonardo" to "attributed works, workshop of authorized and supervised by Leonardo". The curator of the Louvre's 2019–20 da Vinci exhibition, Vincent Delieuvin, wrote in the Prado catalog that the painting had "details of surprisingly poor quality", and that "It is to be hoped that a future permanent display of the work will allow it to be reanalysed with greater objectivity".

Later career

Syson became the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the

(MET) in 2012. The same year he curated ''Plain or Fancy? Restraint and Exuberance in the Decorative Arts''. While at the MET he led the $22 million renovation of the museum's British Galleries. In 2015, Syson was a candidate for the director of the

; the position later went to Gabriele Finaldi. He became the director of the

in 2019, replacing Tim Knox.

Exhibitions

*''Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court'' at the National Gallery, London (2001) *''Renaissance Siena: Art for a City'' at the National Gallery, London (2007) *''Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan'' at the National Gallery, London (2011) *''Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body'' at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018)

Education and early career

National Gallery

Later career

Exhibitions

Selected publications

See also

Notes

References

Further reading