Michael Levey

Michael Levey ( born June 8, 1927 in Wimbledon, London, England; † December 28 2008 in Louth ( Lincolnshire ) ) was a British art historian and director of the National Gallery in London.

Life

Levey grew up in Leigh-on -Sea on the Essex and attended the Oratory School, a Catholic boarding school near Reading. In 1945 he was drafted and spent the time until his release in 1948, mainly in Egypt. This was followed by a study of the English language at Exeter College, Oxford, from which he graduated after two years with a grade of First Class Honours.

Levey in 1951 entered the service of the National Gallery in London as assistant to Sir Martin Davies. His work in the gallery, he could combine with scientific work, so in 1956 his first work, a catalog of the stock of the gallery in Italian paintings of the 18th century, appeared. From the 1960s several books published in, which were equipped with color reproductions and, because they were relatively cheap because of its high requirements, were adopted by a wide audience. His book A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne was moved in Germany.

1963/1964 was Levey Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge. In the years from 1968 he held the post Deputy Keeper and Keeper and from 1973 director of the National Gallery. From this position, he stepped back in 1985 in order to better his contracted Mulipler sclerosis wife, the novelist Brigid Brophy, can take care of, who died from the disease.

Levey was a supporter of the British Humanist Association.

Awards and prizes

Publications (selection)

• Art historian
• Author
• Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order
• Briton
• Born 1927
• Died in 2008
• Man
• Slade Professor of Fine Art
• University teachers (Oxford)