Edward Lucie-Smith is an internationally
known art critic and historian, who is
also a published poet (winner of the
John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), an
anthologist and a practicing photographer.
He has published more than a hundred
books in all, including a biography of
Joan of Arc (republished by Penguin in
paperback as a ‘classic biography’), a
historical novel, and more than a hundred
books about art, chiefly but not exclusively
about contemporary work. He is generally
regarded as the most prolific and the
most widely published writer on art, with
sales for some titles totaling over 250,000
copies.
A number of his art books, among
them Movements in Art since 1945 , Visual
Arts of the 20th Century, A Dictionary of Art
Terms and Art Today are used as standard
texts throughout the world. Movements in
Art since 1945, first published in 1969, has
been continuously in print since that date,
and has appeared in a large number of
languages – among them Chinese, Arabic
and Persian.
He travels and lectures widely. Among
the countries where he has lectured are
Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Slovenia,
Australia, New Zealand and Iran. He also
has strong links with the contemporary
Chinese art world and has written
catalogue essays for solo exhibitions
by leading Chinese artists at the Beijing
National Gallery and the Museum of
Modern Art in Shanghai.
He has curated exhibitions of contemporary art for the Peter Moores Foundation
at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and
more recently (2011), he was co-curator
of the annual Bow Arts Trust exhibition
at two locations in London, co-curator of
the ‘Polemically Small’ exhibition featuring
88 new British artists at the Torrance Art
Museum in Los Angeles, and curator of
a mixed British/Iranian show at the large
KCCC space in Klaipeda, Lithuania.
