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Sir Roy Colin Strong, (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum
curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...
, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and 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 ...
in London. Strong was knighted in 1982.


Early years

Roy Colin Strong was born at Winchmore Hill,
London Borough of Enfield The London Borough of Enfield () is a London boroughs, London borough in Greater London, England. The main communities in the borough are Edmonton, London, Edmonton, Enfield, London, Enfield, Southgate, London, Southgate and Palmers Green. Enfi ...
(then in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
), the third son of hat manufacturer's commercial traveller George Edward Clement Strong, and Mabel Ada Strong (''née'' Smart). He was raised in "an Enfield terrace sans books, with linoleum 'in shades of unutterable green'", and attended nearby Edmonton County School, a grammar school in
Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...
. Strong graduated with a first class honours degree in history from Queen Mary College,
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 ...
. He then earned his PhD from the
Warburg Institute The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of cultural history and the role of images in culture – cros ...
and became a research fellow at the
Institute of Historical Research The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) is a British educational organisation providing resources and training for historical researchers. It is part of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London and is located at Senate Hou ...
. His passionate interest in the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I was sidelined "while he wrote a thesis on ''Elizabethan Court Pageantry'' supervised by the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
scholar, Dame Frances Yates who (he says) restructured and re-formed ... is.. thinking." In 2007 Strong listed his qualifications as DLitt PhD FSA.


Career


National Portrait Gallery

He became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in London in 1959. In 1967, aged 32, he was appointed its director, a post he held until 1973. He set about transforming its conservative image with a series of extrovert shows, including "600 Cecil Beaton portraits 1928–1968." Dedicated to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, Sir Roy went on to amuse audiences at the V&A in 1974 with his collection of fedora hats, kipper ties and maxi coats. By regularly introducing new exhibitions he doubled attendance. Reflecting on his time as director of the National Portrait Gallery, Strong pinpointed the Beaton exhibition as a turning point in the gallery's history. "The public flocked to the exhibition and its run was extended twice. The queues to get in made national news. The Gallery had arrived", Strong wrote in the catalogue to Beaton Portraits, the more recent exhibition of Beaton that ran at the gallery until 31 May 2004.


Victoria and Albert Museum

In 1973, aged 38, he became the youngest director of 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 ...
(V&A), London following John Pope-Hennessy who moved to the British Museum. Strong proved something of a polarising figure condemned by Hennessy in his 1991 autobiography for 'a thirteen years reign that reduced the museum and its staff to a level from which it will not recover for many years'. In his tenure, until 1987, he presided over its '' The Destruction of the Country House'' (1974, with Marcus Binney and John Harris), ''Change and Decay: the future of our churches'' (1977), and ''The Garden: a Celebration of a Thousand Years of British Gardening'' (1979), all of which have been credited with boosting their conservationist agendas. In 1977, following government cuts, he oversaw the closure of the much-lamented Circulation Department of the V&A, which organised tours of the collection around Britain. In 1980, "he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK." He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's President's Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003.


Television

Among other work for television, in 2008 Strong hosted a six-part TV reality series called '' The Diets That Time Forgot''. He acted as the Director of the fictitious Institute of Physical Culture, where nine volunteers spent 24 days testing three weight loss diets and fitness regimes that were popular in the late
Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...
( William Banting and his no-sugar diet), the Edwardian era ( Horace Fletcher and his chewing diet), and the 'roaring' Twenties (Dr Lulu Hunt Peters and her calorie-counting diet). The weekly series was first aired on 18 March on
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
.


Writing

Strong is a notable scholar of Renaissance art, especially English Elizabethan portraiture, on which he has written many books and articles (see bibliography section). His diaries from 1967 to 1987 were published in 1999, as was ''The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts'', a widely acclaimed 700-page popular history of the arts in Britain through two millennia. In 2005, he published ''Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy''. He had a monthly column in the ''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' for much of the 1970s and 1980s, and has written articles for many other magazines and newspapers. In 2000 he wrote ''Gardens Through the Ages'' and is a patron of the Plantation Garden, Norwich.


Personal life


Marriage

On 10 September 1971, Strong married 41-year-old theatrical designer Julia Trevelyan Oman, at
Wilmcote Wilmcote is a village, and since 2004 a separate civil parish, in the English county of Warwickshire, about north of Stratford-upon-Avon. Prior to 2004, it was part of the same parish as Aston Cantlow, and the 2001 population for the whole a ...
church, near
Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon ( ), commonly known as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon (district), Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of Engl ...
, with a special licence from the
Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...
. They enjoyed a belated honeymoon in
Tuscany Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...
. She died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer.


Herefordshire

Strong resides in the village of Much Birch in
Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...
. Here, with his wife, he designed one of Britain's largest post-war formal gardens, the Laskett Gardens. In 1995 he and his wife commissioned the artist Jonathan Myles-Lea to paint a portrait of the house and gardens, which was completed the same year. Since 2010 the gardens have been open to the public by appointment, for groups of more than twenty. An offer by Strong to bequeath Laskett Gardens to the National Trust was rejected in 2014 after it was deemed that they fail to "reach the high rung of national and historic importance". Strong later announced plans to have the gardens "destroyed" after his death. He subsequently relented and in 2015 agreed to bequeath the gardens to the horticultural charity "Perennial" ( Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Society). After leaving the V&A, Strong published a set of diaries that became notorious for its critical assessments of figures in the art and political worlds. It has been rumoured that he has retained a set for posthumous publication. Jan Moir commented in 2002: "His bitchy, hilarious diaries caused a storm when they were published in 1997 and although he has no plans at present to publish another set, he is keeping a private diary again."


Gardening

Strong subsequently designed gardens for
Gianni Versace Giovanni Maria "Gianni" Versace (; 2 December 1946 – 15 July 1997) was an Italian fashion designer, socialite and businessman. He was the founder of Versace, an international luxury-fashion house that produces accessories, fragrances, make-up ...
at Versace's Lake Como villa, Villa Fontanelle, and Versace's Miami house, Casa Casuarina. At Versace's behest, Strong designed an Italian garden at
Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...
's residence, Woodside, in Old Windsor, Berkshire.


Anglicanism

A practising
Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
, Strong is an altar server at Hereford Cathedral, and served as High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. In this capacity he attended the funeral service of the Queen Mother in 2002. On 30 May 2007, in the crypt of
St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...
, he delivered the annual Gresham College Special Lecture, entitled "The Beauty of Holiness and its Perils (or what is to happen to 10,000 parish churches?)," which was deeply critical of the status quo. He said: "little case can be made in the twenty-first century for an expensive building to exist for a service once a week or month lasting an hour," and he wanted to "take an axe and hatchet the utterly awful kipper coloured choir stalls and pews, drag them out of the church and burn them," and "letting in the local community" in order to preserve many rural churches in Britain.


Portraits of Roy Strong

The National Portrait Gallery Collection has seventeen portraits of Strong including a photo and a sketch by Cecil Beaton and an oil painting by Bryan Organ. An early bronze bust by Angela Conner is on view at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. In 2005, Strong sat for
Jon Edgar Jon Edgar is a British sculptor of the Frink School. Improvisation is an important part of his reductive working process and developed from the additive working process of Alan Thornhill. Final works are often autobiographical, perhaps referenc ...
for a work in terracotta which was exhibited at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2013 as part of the ''Sculpture Series Heads – Contributors to British Sculpture''.


Honours

In 1980 the
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded Strong its annual Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his life's work. Strong was knighted in the 1982 New Year Honours and was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to culture.


Honorary positions

* Chairman of the Art Department, Arts Council. * Deputy Chairman, Southbank Centre. * High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, from 2000-21. * President, the Garden History Society, 2000–06. * President, the Friends of Croome Park, from 2008. * Vice-President Plant Heritage * Patron Broadway Arts Festival, 2015


Bibliography


Books

* ''Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I'' (
Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, London, 1963) * ''
Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...
's Triumph'' (Leiden: Leiden University Press, and Oxford:
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 1965), with J. A. van Dorsten. * ''A Brief Guide to the National Portrait Gallery'' (London: Pitkin Pictorials, 1969) * ''The English Icon: Elizabethan & Jacobean Portraiture'' (London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 1969) * ''Tudor & Jacobean Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery'' ( Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1969) * ''Nicholas Hilliard'' ( Michael Joseph Ltd, London, 1975) * ''The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry'' (Thames & Hudson, 1977) * ''And When Did You Last See Your Father?: The Victorian Painter and British History'' (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) * ''The Renaissance Garden in England'' (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979) * ''The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers Book of Days (with Julia Trevelyan Oman) (Ticknor & Fields, New Haven, 1982) * ''Artists of the Tudor Court: The Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520–1620'' ( V&A Publishing, London, 1983) * ''Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals 1450–1650'' (Boydell Press, 1984) * ''Creating Small Gardens'' ( Conran Octopus, London, 1986) * '' Henry Prince of Wales & England's Lost Renaissance'' ( Thames & Hudson, London, 1986) * ''Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I'' (Thames & Hudson, London, 1987) * ''A Small Garden Designer's Handbook'' (Conran Octopus, London, 1987) * ''Lost Treasures of Britain: Five Centuries of Creation and Destruction'' ( Viking Press, London, 1990) * ''The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy: Pageantry, Painting, Iconography, Vol. 1'' ( The Boydell Press, 1990) * ''The Garden Trellis'' (London: Pavilion; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991) * ''Small Period Gardens: A Practical Guide to Design and Planting'' (historic plant lists compiled by Tony Lord) (London: Conran Octopus; New York: Rizzoli, 1992) * ''A Country Life: At Home in the English Countryside'' (illustrated by Julia Trevelyan Oman) ( St Martin's Press, 1994) * ''Successful Small Gardens: New Designs for Time-conscious Gardeners'' (London: Conran Octopus, 1994; New York: Rizzoli, 1995) * ''William Larkin: Icons of Splendour'' ( Franco Maria Ricci, 1995) * '' Country Life, 1897–1997: The English Arcadia'' (1996) * ''The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy: Pageantry, Painting, Iconography, Vol. 2: Elizabethan'' (The Boydell Press, 1996) * ''The Roy Strong Diaries 1967–1987'' ( Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997) * ''The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy: Pageantry, Painting, Iconography, Vol. 3: Jacobean and Caroline'' (The Boydell Press, 1997) * ''The Story of Britain: A People's History'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998) * ''The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts'' ( Jonathan Cape, 1999) * ''The Artist & the Garden'' (
Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
( Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art), 2000) * ''Gardens Through the Ages'' (Conran Octopus, 2000) * ''Feast: A History of Grand Eating'' (Jonathan Cape, 2002) * ''The Laskett: The Story of a Garden'' ( Transworld, 2004) * ''Beaton Portraits'' (with Terence Pepper and Peter Conrad) (Yale University Press, 2004) * ''Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy'' (
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...
, 2005) * ''Passions Past and Present'' (
Pimlico Pimlico () is a district in Central London, in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Lon ...
, 2005) * ''A Little History of the English Country Church'' (
Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
, 2007) * ''Visions of England'' ( The Bodley Head, 2011) * ''Roy Strong: Self-portrait as a Young Man'' ( Bodleian Library, 2013) * ''Remaking a Garden: The Laskett Transformed'' ( Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2014) * ''Scenes and Apparitions: The Roy Strong Diaries 1988-2003'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016) * ''Types and Shadows: The Roy Strong Diaries 2004–2015'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020) * ''The Stuart Image: English Portraiture 1603-1649'' (The Boydell Press, 2023)


Journal articles

* * * * *


Archives

A number of institutions hold the papers of Roy Strong. These include the National Portrait Gallery, the Bodleian Libraries and the Paul Mellon Centre. The National Portrait Gallery holds Strong's correspondence with colleagues and acquaintances, mostly of a semi-personal nature concerning his personal commitments and achievements. The Bodleian Libraries' holdings of Roy Strong papers include manuscripts of his many books on historical, cultural and artistic subjects; personal diaries, correspondence and material relating to the Laskett garden. The Paul Mellon Centre holds the research material compiled by Strong in the process of writing his publications on Tudor and Stuart art.


References


External links


The Roy Strong Archive
Paul Mellon Centre
Papers of Sir Roy Strong
National Portrait Gallery *
The Laskett Gardens Official Website

Portraits
in the National Portrait Gallery, London
Edmonton County former pupilsJulia Trevelyan Oman Archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection
University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

Roy Strong, ''After She'd Gone,'' The Guardian, 21 October 2006

Alan Strachan, ''Julia Trevelyan Oman, Leading designer for theatre, ballet and opera'' (obituary), The Independent, 13 October 2003
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strong, Roy 1935 births Living people Directors of the National Portrait Gallery, London Directors of the Victoria and Albert Museum English Anglicans English art historians English curators English autobiographers English non-fiction writers English television presenters English landscape and garden designers Alumni of Queen Mary University of London Alumni of the Warburg Institute High stewards of Westminster Abbey Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Knights Bachelor People from Winchmore Hill English male non-fiction writers Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Country Life (magazine) people 20th-century English diarists 21st-century English diarists