Art

From somewhere to nowhere

Item: Self-Portrait as a Young Man
Author: Patrick Mccaughey

by Patrick McCaughey •

July–August 2013, no. 353

Self-Portrait as a Young Man by Roy Strong

Bodleian Library (Inbooks), $59.95 hb, 296 pp, 9781851242825

Art

From somewhere to nowhere

by Patrick McCaughey •

July–August 2013, no. 353

Roy Strong was appointed director of the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in 1967 at the age of thirty-two. Today it would be astonishing to head one of the United Kingdom’s national collections at that age; five decades ago it was outrageous. Only Kenneth Clark at thirty was younger when he became director of the National Gallery. Strong’s ascent to the NPG has stayed in his mind as the fulcrum of his professional life.

Patrick McCaughey

Patrick McCaughey is former Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford Connecticut, and the Yale Center for British Art. His most recent book is Strange Country: Why Australian Painting Matters (2014). His other works include Voyage and Landfall: The Art of Jan Senbergs (2006). He writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and Australian Book Review. He lives and works on the banks of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, and has recently finished editing Fred Williams: Diaries 1963–1970 for the Miegunyah Press.