Sir Michael Vincent Levey, LVO, FBA,

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

(8 June 1927 – 28 December 2008) was a British

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 ...

and was the director of 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 ...

from 1973 to 1986.

Biography

Levey was born in

Wimbledon, London Wimbledon () is a suburb of southwest London, England, southwest of Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,189 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Wimb ...

, and grew up in

Leigh-on-Sea Leigh-on-Sea (), commonly referred to simply as Leigh, is a List of towns in England, town and civil parish within the city of Southend-on-Sea, located in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. In 2011 it had a population of 22,509. Geograph ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. He attended The Oratory School, a Catholic boarding school near

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

. He was called up for

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

in 1945 and served it largely in Egypt. After demobilisation in 1948, Levey went to

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...

, to read English; he graduated with first class honours after only two years' study. In 1951, Levey joined the National Gallery as assistant to the Keeper, Sir Martin Davies. He combined administrative duties with scholarly work, producing his first catalogue, on the Gallery's 18th-century Italian paintings, in 1956. In the 1960s, affordable art books with colour reproductions for the general reader began to appear, and Levey was commissioned to write an overview of Western painting for

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

's ''

World of Art ''World of Art'' (formerly known as ''The World of Art Library'') is a long established series of pocket-sized art books from the British publisher Thames & Hudson, comprising over 300 titles as of 2021. The books are typically around 200 page ...

'' series. The resulting book, ''A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne'' (1962), remains a classic overview of European art history from the introduction of perspective in Italy to the beginnings of modern art at the start of the 20th century. From 1963 to 1964, Levey was

Slade Professor of Fine Art The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the oldest professorship of art and art history at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and University College, London. History The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collect ...

Cambridge University 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 ...

; his lectures were published as ''From Rococo to Revolution'' in 1966. ''The Early Renaissance'', written a year later, is considered another milestone in popular art publishing, and was the first non-fiction work to win the

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award given annually to a British, Irish or British-based author for a work of "imaginative literature" – including poetry, novels, history, biography and creative non-fiction – published in the pre ...

for Literature. Levey became deputy Keeper of the National Gallery in 1966, Keeper in 1968, and Director in 1973. He was knighted in 1981. He relinquished his directorship to care for his wife, the novelist and critic

Brigid Brophy Brigid Antonia Brophy (married name Brigid Levey, later Lady Levey; 12 June 19297 August 1995), was an English author, literary critic and polemicist. She was an influential campaigner who agitated for many types of social reform, including ...

, after she was diagnosed with

multiple sclerosis Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease resulting in damage to myelinthe insulating covers of nerve cellsin the brain and spinal cord. As a demyelinating disease, MS disrupts the nervous system's ability to Action potential, transmit ...

in 1985; the disease ultimately claimed her life. Brophy and Levey were married in 1954 and had one daughter Kate Levey (b. 1957). Levey was a Distinguished Supporter of the

British Humanist Association Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent non-religious people in the UK through a mixture of charitable servic ...

. His memoir, ''The Chapel is on Fire'', recounts his upbringing and was published in 2000.

Selected publications

* ''The German School; National Gallery Catalogues'', 1959, National Gallery, London * ''Pictures in the Royal Collection, The Later Italian Pictures'', 1964, Phaidon Press, London * ''A Concise History of Painting: From

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...

to Cézanne'',

' The World of Art Library' series (). * ''Painting at Court'', 1971, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. * ''Early Renaissance'', 1967, Penguin * ''The 17th and 18th century Italian Schools; National Gallery Catalogues'', 1971, National Gallery, London, * ''The Life & Death of Mozart'', 1971, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (). * ''From Rococo to Revolution: Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting''.

'The World of Art Library' series * ''The Case of Walter Pater'', 1978, Thames & Hudson. * ''The National Gallery Collection'', 1987, National Gallery Publications, * ''Painting and Sculpture in France, 1700-1789'', Yale History of Art, 1993 * ''Florence, a Portrait'', 1996,

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a British publishing firm headquartered in London and founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in ...

Biography

Selected publications

References

Further reading