Nicholas Penny: Difference between revisions

Between 1984 and 1989 Penny was keeper of the department of [[Western art]] at the [[Ashmolean Museum]], [[Oxford]] and Professorial Fellow of [[Balliol College, Oxford]]. In 1990 he began a long association with the [[National Gallery]], joining the institution as Clore Curator of Renaissance Painting. Shortly afterwards, in 1991, he identified the ''[[Madonna of the Pinks]]'' belonging to the [[Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland|Duke of Northumberland]] as a genuine [[Raphael]], and not a copy of a lost original as was previously supposed. The painting came to public prominence in 2002 when the Gallery undertook a major fundraising campaign in order to prevent the painting's sale to the [[Getty Center]] in [[Los Angeles]]. Earlier that year Penny made an unsuccessful bid for the directorship of the National Gallery, the post going to [[Charles Saumarez Smith]]. Again in 2002, Penny was appointed Senior Curator of Sculpture at the [[National Gallery of Art]] in [[Washington, DC]]. Following Saumarez Smith's early resignation from his post, Penny was once again a candidate for heading the London National Gallery, and this time he succeeded.

He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the Queen's 2015 Birthday Honours.

Penny is a regular contributor to ''[[The Burlington Magazine]]'' and the ''[[London Review of Books]]''.