Roy Strong
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Sir Roy Strong (born August 23, 1935) is an English arts curator, writer, broadcaster and garden designer.
Roy Strong was born in Winchmore Hill, north London. He attended Edmonton Grammar School and took a degree in History at Queen Mary College, University of London. He then obtained a PhD from the Warburg Institute.
He was the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London from 1967 to 1973, and the youngest ever Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London from 1973 to 1987.
After leaving the V&A, Roy Strong published a set of diaries that became infamous for his often critical assessment of figures of the art and political worlds and it is rumoured that he has retained a set for posthumous publication. He now lives in Hereford and with his wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman, who died in 2003, created one of England's largest post-war formal gardens. He now works full-time as a writer and broadcaster. In 1999, he published The Spirit of Britain: a narrative history of the arts, a 700-page attempt to trace the arts of the British Isles through two millennia, which was widely critically acclaimed. In 2005, he published Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy.
He is High Steward of Westminster Abbey.
[edit] Selected books
- The Renaissance Garden in England, Roy Strong (1984)
- The Roy Strong Diaries 1967–1987, Roy Strong (1997), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-81841-4
- The Story of Britain: A People's History, Roy Strong (1998)
- The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry, Roy Strong (1999)
- The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts, Roy Strong (1999)
- Gardens Through the Ages, Roy Strong (2000)
- Feast: A History of Grand Eating, Roy Strong (2003)
- Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, Roy Strong (2003)
- The Arts in Britain: A History, Roy Strong (2004)
- Beaton Portraits, Roy Strong and Terence Pepper (2004)
- Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy, Roy Strong (2005)
- Passions Past and Present, Roy Strong (2005)
- The Diary of John Evelyn, John Evelyn and Roy Strong (2006)
