Alastair Sooke

Alastair Sooke is an author and broadcaster, and chief art critic at The Telegraph. He has written and presented more than 60 hours of television and radio for the BBC, and produced three books about art published by Penguin; a new title, focusing on a single masterpiece by the 19th-century French artist Georges Seurat, will be published by London’s National Gallery in 2025. Recently, he filmed six new episodes of his television series China’s Greatest Treasures (following the success of the first series, a major production for BBC News, which attracted tens of millions of viewers internationally). The Way I See It, his 30-part BBC Radio 3 series about modern art, made in collaboration with New York’s Museum of Modern Art (and repeated on BBC Radio 4), is available on BBC Sounds. He is a trustee of The Ampersand Foundation and has judged the biennial Ampersand Foundation Award (worth £125,000), the 2024 Sky Arts Award for visual art, and the inaugural Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. He has served on the British Council’s Venice Biennale selection committee as well as advisory boards of both the Classical Art Research Centre at the University of Oxford and the Courtauld, and has moderated many events at festivals and museums. He has also presented award-winning short films for various galleries, charities, companies and brands (including Art Fund, Christie’s, Frieze x Frédéric Malle, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and Tate), and has led tours of modern art on the French Riviera for Martin Randall Travel. Prior to his appointment, in 2019, as chief art critic at The Telegraph (for which he has worked continuously since 2003), he wrote a fortnightly column for the BBC Culture website; he has also written catalogue essays about artists including Phyllida Barlow and Ian Davenport, and contributes to The World of Interiors magazine, published by Condé Nast. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and the Courtauld Institute of Art, and lives in London with his wife and three children.

Television credits include:

The Culture Show (BBC Two, 2009-14)

Modern Masters (BBC One, 2010)

The Art of World War Two: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2010)

Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture (BBC Four, 2011)

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2011: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2011)

The World’s Most Expensive Paintings (BBC One, 2011)

The Perfect Suit (BBC Four, 2011)

Unfinished (BBC Two, 2012)

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2012)

Into Orbit: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2012)

Treasures of Ancient Rome (BBC Four, 2012)

How the Devil Got His Horns: A Diabolical Tale (BBC Four, 2012; shortlisted for a Broadcast Digital Award)

Whaam! Roy Lichtenstein at Tate Modern (BBC Four, 2013)

Going Underground: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2013)

Your Paintings: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2013)

Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball (BBC Two, 2013)

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2013)

The Culture Show: Venice – A Tale of Two Cities (BBC Two, 2013)

The Culture Show at Edinburgh: Leonardo da Vinci – The Anatomist (BBC Two, 2013)

The Culture Show: A Portrait of Jonathan Yeo (BBC Two, 2013)

The World’s Most Expensive Stolen Paintings (BBC Two, 2013)

Treasures of Ancient Egypt (BBC Four, 2014)

The Culture Show: Henri Matisse – A Cut Above the Rest (BBC Two, 2014)

The Culture Show: ARTiculation – For the Love of Art (BBC Two, 2014)

Pop Go the Women: The Other Story of Pop Art – A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2014)

The Summer Exhibition: BBC Arts at the Royal Academy (BBC Two, 2014)

The Battle for Stonehenge: A Culture Show Special (BBC Two, 2014)

Constable: A Country Rebel (BBC Four, 2014)

Treasures of Ancient Greece (BBC Four, 2015)

Soup Cans & Superstars: How Pop Art Changed the World (BBC Four, 2015)

Myths of Britain (BBC News, 2016)

Robert Rauschenberg: Pop Art Pioneer (BBC Two, 2016)

An Art Lovers’ Guide Series 1: Amsterdam, Barcelona, St Petersburg (BBC Four, 2017)

Trump on Culture: Brave New World? (BBC Two, 2017)

An Art Lovers’ Guide Series 2: Lisbon, Beirut, Baku (BBC Four, 2018)

China’s Greatest Treasures (BBC News, 2019)

Luxury Through the Ages (BBC News, 2019)

Museums in Quarantine: Warhol (BBC Four, 2020)

Inside Museums: Istanbul Modern (BBC News, 2023)

Inside Museums: Orientalism (BBC News, 2023)

Inside Museums: Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (BBC News 2023)

China’s Greatest Treasures 2 (forthcoming)

Radio credits include:

I Heart Milton Glaser (BBC Radio 4, 2011)

Smiley’s People (BBC Radio 4, 2012)

Ampers-Fan (BBC Radio 4, 2012)

The Essay: The Piano in Five Pieces (BBC Radio 3, 2012)

Sarah Lucas at the Venice Biennale (BBC Radio 4, 2015)

The Art of Now: Greek Revival (BBC Radio 4, 2018)

The Way I See It (BBC Radio 3, 2019)

Iran’s Secret Art Collection (BBC Radio 4, 2021)

Sunday Feature: The Primitivism of Primitivism (BBC Radio 3, 2022)

Books:

Roy Lichtenstein: How Modern Art Was Saved by Donald Duck (Penguin Special) (Penguin, 2013)

Henri Matisse: A Second Life (Penguin, 2014)

Pop Art: A Colourful History (Viking, 2015)

Seurat: Bathers at Asnières (National Gallery Global, 2025)