Roy Strong

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Sir Roy Colin Strong (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Contents 1 Education 2 Marriage 3 National Portrait Gallery 4 Victoria & Albert Museum 5 Herefordshire 6 Writings 7 Anglicanism 8 Television 9 Notes 10 Selected books 11 External links

[edit] Education

Roy Colin Strong was born in Winchmore Hill, North London and attended Edmonton County School in Edmonton.

He earned a first class honours degree in history at Queen Mary College, University of London. He then earned his Ph.D from the Warburg Institute, University of London and became a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research. 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 scholar, Dame Frances Yates “who [he says] restructured and re-formed my thinking.”^[1] In 2007 Strong lists his qualifications as, DLitt PhD FSS.^[2]

[edit] Marriage

Roy Strong married Julia Trevelyan Oman in 1971, and he was knighted in 1982.^[3] The arts world was astonished when "Strong abandoned the bachelor life and "eloped" with Julia Trevelyan Oman, marrying her at Wilmcote church, near Stratford-upon-Avon, on September 10 1971 with a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Julia Trevelyan Oman was 41 and her husband 35...they enjoyed a belated honeymoon in Tuscany."^[4]

[edit] National Portrait Gallery

He became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in 1959, and was its director 1967-73: Sir Roy came to prominence at age 32 when he became the youngest director of the National Portrait Gallery. 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 60s and 70s, Sir Roy went on to wow 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.^[5]

Reflecting on his time as director of the National Portrait Gallery, Sir Roy Strong pinpoints the exhibition "Beaton Portraits 1928-1968" as a turning point in the gallery’s history...Strong chose fashion photographer Cecil Beaton as a catalyst for change says much about the glamour and appeal of the photographer’s work. But even so, it seems unlikely that anyone could have predicted the sheer scale of the exhibition’s success. "The public flocked to the exhibition and its run was extended twice. The queues to get in made national news. The Gallery had arrived", writes Strong in the catalogue to Beaton Portraits, the gallery’s new exhibition which runs until May 31.^[6]

[edit] Victoria & Albert Museum

In 1973, aged 39, he became the youngest director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London. In his tenure, until 1987, he presided over its exhibitions 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 1980, "he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK."^[7]

[edit] Herefordshire

Sir Roy lives in the village of Much Birch, which lies 8 miles (13 km) south of Hereford on the A49 trunk road. Here, with his late wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman, who died in 2003, he designed one of England's largest post-war formal gardens, The Laskett. He now works full-time as a writer and broadcaster. He has lived in Herefordshire since 1973-4 and he and his wife conceived the Laskett garden in autumn 1974.

[edit] Writings

In 1999, he published The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts, a widely acclaimed 700-page study of British arts through two millennia. In 2005, he published Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy.

After leaving the V&A, Strong published a set of diaries that became infamous for its often critical assessments of figures in the art and political worlds. It has been rumoured that he has retained a set for posthumous publication. "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."^[8]

[edit] Anglicanism

As a committed Anglican, Strong serves as an altar server at Hereford Cathedral, as well as being high steward of Westminster Abbey. He was previously its high bailiff.^[9] In this capacity he attended the funeral service of the Queen Mother in 2001. On 30 May 2007, in the Crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, 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?),^[10] 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,"^[10] and he recommends someone taking "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.^[10]

[edit] Television

In 2008 Strong hosted a six-part TV reality series The Diets That Time Forgot. He acted as the Director of the fictitous 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 (William Banting) and Edwardian periods (Horace Fletcher) and the 'roaring' Twenties (Dr Lulu Hunt Peters). The weekly series was first aired on March 18 on Channel 4.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Selected books

• Nicholas Hilliard, London: Michael Joseph Ltd, Roy Strong (1975), ISBN 0718113012
• 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)
• A Little History of the English Country Church, Roy Strong (2007)

[edit] External links

• Knight Ayton Management information
• Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Edmonton County former pupils
• Julia Trevelyan Oman Archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, University of Bristol
• 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

• Val Hennessy, The bell tolls for Britain’s churches, Review of: A Little History of the English Country Church by Roy Strong (Cape, £16.99), Daily Mail, 24 September 2007

Cultural offices
Preceded by David Piper	Director of the National Portait Gallery 1967-1973	Succeeded by John Hayes
Preceded by John Pope-Hennessy	Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum 1973-1987	Succeeded by Elizabeth Esteve-Coll