Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 Р26 March 1983), known as Sir Anthony Blunt, KCVO between 1956 and 1979, was an English art historian, formerly Professor of the History of Art, University of London and director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (1947-74). He was the "Fourth Man" of the Cambridge Five, a group of spies working for the Soviet Union from sometime in the 1930s to the early 1950s. is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Queen Victoria founded the Royal Victorian Order. ... Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... This article is about the academic discipline of art history. ... The University of London is a university based primarily in London. ... The Courtauld Institute of Art is a listed organisation of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. ... The Cambridge Five (also sometimes known as the Cambridge Four) was a ring of British spies who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and into the early 1950s. ... SPY may refer to: SPY (spiders), ticker symbol for Standard & Poors Depository Receipts SPY (magazine), a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps SPY (Ivory Coast), airport code for San P̩dro, C̫te dIvoire SPY (Ship Planning Yard), a U.S. Navy acronym SPY, short for MOWAG SPY, a...

Biography

Early life

Blunt was born in Bournemouth, the third and youngest son (there were no daughters) of a vicar, the Revd (Arthur) Stanley Vaughan Blunt (1870–1929) and his wife, Hilda Violet (1880–1969), daughter of Henry Master of the Madras civil service. He was educated at Marlborough College, where he was a contemporary of Louis MacNeice (whose unfinished autobiography The Strings are False contains numerous references to Blunt), John Betjeman and Graham Shepard, and later read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, but he switched to Modern Languages after his first year, eventually graduating in 1930, to become a teacher of French. He became a Fellow of the college in 1932, and in 1965 was Slade Professor of Fine Art in Cambridge. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society which at that time was Marxist, formed from members of Cambridge University. , Bournemouth is a large town and tourist resort, situated on the south coast of England. ... In the broadest sense, a vicar (from the Latin vicarius) is anyone acting as a substitute or agent for a superior (compare vicarious). In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant. ... Marlborough College is a British independent boarding school in the county of Wiltshire. ... Frederick Louis MacNeice (September 12, 1907 – September 3, 1963) was a British and Irish poet and playwright. ... A collection of Betjemans poetry, published by John Murray in January 2006 Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Whos Who as a poet and hack. He was born to a middle-class family... Graham Shepard is the son of E.H. Shepard illustrator of Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ... Full name The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Motto Virtus vera nobilitas Virtue is true Nobility Named after The Holy Trinity Previous names King’s Hall and Michaelhouse (until merged in 1546) Established 1546 Sister College(s) Christ Church Master The Lord Rees of Ludlow Location Trinity Street... The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the senior professorship of art at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and London. ... Trinity College Great Court. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

He was also a homosexual. Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ...

Espionage

After visiting Russia in 1933, Blunt was recruited in 1934 by the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB). A committed Marxist, Blunt was instrumental in recruiting Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. The NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del  ) (Russian: , ) or Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the leading secret police organization of the Soviet Union that was responsible for political repressions during Stalinism. ... This article is about the KGB of the Soviet Union. ... Wanted poster of Burgess (right) with Donald_Duart_Maclean. ... Donald Duart Maclean Donald Duart Maclean (25 May 1913 – 6 March 1983) was a career British diplomat turned Soviet intelligence agent. ...

He joined the British Army in 1939 and in 1940 was recruited to MI5, the military intelligence department. He passed on ULTRA intelligence from decrypted Enigma messages to the Soviet Union. The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... MI5 Logo. ... Ultra (sometimes capitalized ULTRA) was the name used by the British for intelligence resulting from decryption of German communications in World War II. The term eventually became the standard designation in both Britain and the United States for all intelligence from high-level cryptanalytic sources. ... In the history of cryptography, the Enigma was a portable cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. ...

Later life

After the war Blunt became director (1947-1974) of the Courtauld Institute of Art. His students there included Brian Sewell and Nicholas Serota. The Courtauld Institute of Art is a listed organisation of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. ... Brian Sewell (born 15 July 1931 in Kensington, London)[1] is an English art critic. ... Nicholas Serota Sir Nicholas Serota (born 1946) is a curator, and is currently Director of the Tate Gallery, the United Kingdoms national gallery of modern and British art. ...

In 1945 Blunt became Surveyor of the King's Pictures, and retained the post under Queen Elizabeth II, for which work he was knighted as a KCVO in 1956. He retained the post until 1972. He was particularly knowledgeable on the works of Nicolas Poussin. Interested in architecture, he attended a summer school in Sicily in 1965; this led to a deep interest in Sicilian architecture, and in 1968 he wrote the only authoritative and in-depth book on Sicilian Baroque. Shaped by the personal tastes of kings and queens over more than 500 years, the Royal Collection includes paintings, drawings and watercolours, furniture, ceramics, clocks, silver, sculpture, jewellery, books, manuscripts, prints and maps, arms and armour, fans, and textiles. ... Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor; born 21 April 1926) is Queen of sixteen sovereign states, holding each crown and title equally. ... The silver Anglia knight, commissioned as a trophy in 1850, intended to represent the Black Prince. ... Victoria founded the Royal Victorian Order. ... “Poussin” redirects here. ... This article is about building architecture. ... Sicily ( in Italian and Sicilian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,708 km² (9,926 sq. ... Illustration 1: Sicilian Baroque. ...

Blunt is frequently spoken of as a distant relative of Queen Mary (Mary of Teck) – generally Prince Michael of Hesse is given as their common cousin – however, the exact lineage is never produced. He was, however, demonstrably a cousin of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother, through his mother, Hilda V. Master, daughter of John Henry Master, son of Frances Mary Smith, sister of Oswald Smith, father of Frances Dora Smith, mother of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, father of Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, making Blunt and the Queen Mother third cousins, by common descent from George Smith and his wife Frances Mary Mosley ^[1]. Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was the Queen Consort of George V. Queen Mary was also the Empress of India. ... Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Angela Marguerite; 4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002), was the Queen Consort of King George VI of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until his death in 1952. ... Queen Mother is a title reserved for a widowed queen consort whose son or daughter from that union is the reigning monarch. ... The 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne Claude George Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne (March 14, 1855 - November 7, 1944), was the maternal grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II. Lord Strathmore was born at Lowndes Square in London, the son of the 13th Earl and his wife, the... Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Angela Marguerite; 4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002), was the Queen Consort of King George VI of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until his death in 1952. ... Queen Mother is a title reserved for a widowed queen consort whose son or daughter from that union is the reigning monarch. ...

In 1963 MI5 learned of his espionage from an American, Michael Straight, whom he had recruited. Blunt confessed to MI5 on 23 April 1964, but his spying career remained an official secret until he was publicly named by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979. ^[2] He was promptly stripped of his knighthood, and removed as an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. According to MI5 papers released in 2002, that agency had been told by the writer Moura Budberg in 1950 that Blunt was a member of the Communist Party, but the information was ignored. Michael Straight Michael Whitney Straight, (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. ... is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... A typical classified document. ... A prime minister is the most senior minister of a cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. ... Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (née Roberts; born 13 October 1925) served as British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 until 1990, being the first and to date only woman to hold either post. ... MI5 Logo. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist party in the United Kingdom. ...

He was the brother of writer Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt and of numismatist Christopher Evelyn Blunt. Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt (1901–1987) was an art teacher, author, artist and curator of the Watts Gallery at Compton, Surrey. ... This article needs cleanup. ...

Blunt in fiction

A Question of Attribution was a play written by Alan Bennett about Blunt in the weeks before his public exposure as a spy, and his relationship with the Queen. After a successful run in London's West End, it was made into a television play directed by John Schlesinger and starring James Fox, Prunella Scales and Geoffrey Palmer. It was aired on the BBC in 1991. This play was seen as a companion to Bennett's 1983 television play about Guy Burgess, An Englishman Abroad. A Question of Attribution is a 1991 television play written by Alan Bennett and commissioned by the BBC. Directed by John Schlesinger it stars James Fox as Anthony Blunt and Prunella Scales as Queen Elizabeth II. Set around 1977 the play details the complex relationship between Blunt as Keeper of... Published by Faber/Profile Books in 2005 Alan Bennett (born May 9, 1934) is an English author and actor noted for his work, his boyish appearance and his sonorous Yorkshire accent. ... Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor; born 21 April 1926) is Queen of sixteen sovereign states, holding each crown and title equally. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre in London, England, or sometimes more specifically for shows staged in the large theatres of Londons Theatreland. Along with New Yorks Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre... John Richard Schlesinger CBE (February 16, 1926 – July 25, 2003) was an English film director. ... James Fox (born 19 May 1939) is an English actor. ... Prunella Scales CBE (born 22 June 1932) is an English actress best known for her role as the fearsome Sybil Fawlty in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... Geoffrey Dyson Palmer OBE (born 4 June 1927) is an English actor, noted mostly for his extensive career in British sitcoms. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... Wanted poster of Burgess (right) with Donald_Duart_Maclean. ... An Englishman Abroad is a film based on the true story of a chance meeting of an actress, Coral Browne, with Guy Burgess, one of the famous group of Soviet Union whilst with MI6. ...

"Blunt - The Fourth Man" a 1985 film staring Ian Richardson, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Williams, Rosie Kerslake ; a complex excursion into the events of 1951 when Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean went missing.

The Untouchable, a 1997 novel by John Banville, is a roman à clef based largely on the life and character of Anthony Blunt; the novel's protagonist, Victor Maskell, is a loosely disguised Blunt, although some elements of the character are based on Louis MacNeice. The Untouchable is a 1997 novel by Irish author John Banville. ... John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist and journalist. ... A roman à clef or roman à clé (French for novel with a key) is a novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction. ...

A Friendship of Convenience - Being a Discourse on Poussin's 'Landscape With a Man Killed by a Snake', is a 1997 novel by Rufus Gunn set in 1956 in which Blunt, then Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures encounters Joe Losey, a film director fleeing McCarthyism. A 1947 comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society warning of the dangers of a Communist takeover. ...

Blunt as Art Historian

All throughout his espionage, Anthony Blunt had been living an extremely fruitful career as a highly respected art historian. In 1940, most of his fellowship dissertation was published under the title of Artistic Theories in Italy, 1450-1600. In 1945 he is given the esteemed position of Surveyor of the King’s, and later the Queen’s, Pictures, one of the largest private collections in the world. He held the position for 27 years, and was vital in the expansion and cataloguing of the Queen’s Gallery, which opened in 1962.

A few years later, in 1947, Blunt became the Director of the Courtauld Institute and Professor of the History of Art in the University of London. During his 27 years at the Courtauld Institute, Blunt was known to have been a dedicated teacher, an enormously kind superior to his staff and an invaluable resource for changing the Institute for the better. He fought for more teachers, more funding, more space and was central in acquiring outstanding collections for the Galleries.

Blunt is often credited for making the Courtauld what it is today, for pioneering art history in Britain, and for training the next generation of British art historians. In fact, according to one of Blunt’s biographers, Miranda Carter, several of his former students have been highly influenced by his teachings, including Neil Macgregor, the former editor for the Burlington magazine, former director of the National Gallery and the current director for the British Museum.

Other students who have been influenced by Anthony Blunt are, Sir Alan Bowness (who ran the Tate Gallery), John Golding (who wrote the first major book on Cubism), Reyner Banham (an influential art historian), John Shearman (the ‘world expert’ on Mannerism and the former Chair of the Art History Department at Harvard), Michael Jaffe (an expert on Rubens), Michael Mahoney (former Curator of European Paintings at the National Gallery in Washington and former Chair of the Art History Department at Trinity College, Hartford), Brian Sewell (an art critic for the Evening Standard) and Anita Brookner (an art historian and novelist).

In 1953, Blunt published his book, Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700, and three years later was knighted by the British Government for his work for MI5. Among his many accomplishments, Blunt also received a series of honorary fellowships, became the National Trust picture advisor, put on exhibitions at the Royal Academy, edited and wrote numerous books and articles and sat on every influential art committee.

After Margaret Thatcher announced Blunt’s espionage, he continued his art historical work by writing and publishing a book on the Baroque Period and on Pietro da Cortona.

Blunt also published books on the art of areas which are generally neglected, including his book, Sicilian Baroque. This publication is admittedly limited and is intended as only a survey of the architecture of Sicily. Blunt comments in his preface that a “proper history of this particular branch of Baroque architecture” could not be completed as much research is needed to be done in “the archives of the churches, the religious houses and the old families in the island.” Despite his limited resources, Blunt broke new ground in this area, a subject still often neglected in today’s art history.

He has also been said to have “played a central role in restoring the reputation of the French painter Nicolas Poussin,” of whom he had written numerous books and articles. He did not, however, limit his research in the areas of Italian and French art, but also wrote on topics as diverse as William Blake, Picasso, the Galleries of England, Scotland and Wales and of the German drawings in the collection of the Queen.

Many of his ground-breaking publications are still seen today by scholars as integral to the study of art history. His method of writing is lucid and is based largely on art and architecture in context of their place in history. In his book, Art and Architecture in France, for example, he begins each section with a brief depiction of the social, political and/or religious contexts in which works of art and art movements are emerging. And in Blunt’s Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600, he clearly explains the motivational circumstances involved in the transitions between the High Renaissance and Mannerism. His ground-breaking work and logical method to art history has served as resources for many scholars including Todd P. Olson and John Beldon Scott.

Publications

• A. Blunt, François Mansart and the Origins of French Classical Architecture.
• A. Blunt, Baroque and Rococo Architecture and Decoration.
• A. Blunt, Borromini.
• R. Beresford and A. Blunt, Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700, 1953.
• Sicilian Baroque, 1968.
• A. Blunt, "Roman Baroque Architecture: the Other Side of the Medal," Art history, no. 1, 1980, pp. 61-80 (includes bibliographical references).
• A. Blunt, "Rubens and architecture," Burlington magazine, 1977, 894, pp. 609-621.
• Anthony Blunt, Picasso's Guernica, Oxford University Press, 1969.
• Blunt, Anthony, Nicolas Poussin. Pallas Athene publishing, London, 1995

Bibliography

• John Banville, The Untouchable (novel), 1997.
• Alan Bennett, A Question of Attribution (first theatre performance as the second part of a double-bill, with An Englishman Abroad about Guy Burgess as the first part, London, 1988; broadcast as television play, 1991; both plays published in one volume as Single Spies, London, Faber, 1989, ISBN 0-571-14105-6.
• Andrew Boyle, The Climate of Treason, 1979.
• Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives, Pan (UK), ISBN 0-330-36766-8.
• John Costello (novelist), Mask Of Treachery, London, Collins, 1988, ISBN 0-688-04483-2.
• Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False, London, Faber, 1965, reissued 1996, ISBN 0-571-11832-1.
• Penrose, Barrie, & Freeman, Simon, "Conspiracy of Silence: The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt," New York, 1987.
• Michael Straight, After Long Silence: the Man Who Exposed Anthony Blunt Tells for the First Time the Story of the Cambridge Spy Network from the Inside, London, Collins, 1983, ISBN 0-00-217001-9.
• Michael Kitson. "Blunt, Anthony Frederick (1907-1983)," rev. Miranda Carter, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP,2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com.
• "Blunt, Anthony." Dictionary of Art Historians. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/blunta.htm.
• "Anthony Blunt and the Courtauld Insitute." The Burlington Magazine,116, no. 858 (Sept. 1974):501.

John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist and journalist. ... The Untouchable is a 1997 novel by Irish author John Banville. ... Published by Faber/Profile Books in 2005 Alan Bennett (born May 9, 1934) is an English author and actor noted for his work, his boyish appearance and his sonorous Yorkshire accent. ... Wanted poster of Burgess (right) with Donald_Duart_Maclean. ... Miranda Carter is a British writer and biographer. ... Frederick Louis MacNeice (September 12, 1907 – September 3, 1963) was a British and Irish poet and playwright. ... Michael Straight Michael Whitney Straight, (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. ... Michael William Lely Kitson (born Ealing, Middlesex, on 30 January 1926, died Islington, London, 7 August 1998) was an English art historian. ...

See also

• Cambridge Five
• Kim Philby
• Guy Burgess
• Donald Duart Maclean
• John Cairncross

The Cambridge Five (also sometimes known as the Cambridge Four) was a ring of British spies who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and into the early 1950s. ... Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell Kim Philby or H.A.R. Philby (OBE: 1946-1965), (1 January 1912 – 11 May 1988) was a high-ranking member of British intelligence, a communist, and spy for the Soviet Unions NKVD and KGB. In 1963, Philby was revealed as a member of... Wanted poster of Burgess (right) with Donald_Duart_Maclean. ... Donald Duart Maclean Donald Duart Maclean (25 May 1913 – 6 March 1983) was a career British diplomat turned Soviet intelligence agent. ... John Cairncross (July 25, 1913 – October 8, 1995) was a British intelligence officer during World War II who, along with four other men (Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt) passed secrets to the Soviet Union during the war. ... Kenneth Clark presenting the BBC TV series Civilisation. ... This office, in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, is responsible for the care and maintenance of the royal collection of pictures owned by the Sovereign in an official capacity - as distinct from those owned privately and displayed at Sandringham House... Sir Oliver Nicholas Millar, GCVO, FSA, FBA, (26 April 1923 – 10 May 2007) was a British art historian. ...

References

• Anthony Blunt by Michael Kitson in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Genealogics is a free genealogical, historical website run by Leo van de Pas [1] and Ian Fettes. ... Michael William Lely Kitson (born Ealing, Middlesex, on 30 January 1926, died Islington, London, 7 August 1998) was an English art historian. ...

Further reading

• Nigel West, Seven Spies Who Changed the World. London: Secker & Warburg, 1991 (hard cover). London: Mandarin, 1992 (paperback).

External links

• Anthony Blunt (BBC)
• Blunt's FBI file 2003-10-11