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Alastair Sooke is one of Britain’s leading arts journalists and broadcasters. Deputy art critic of The Daily Telegraph, he has written and presented documentaries on television and radio for the BBC. Modern Masters, his widely praised series chronicling how modern art infiltrated the everyday world, was broadcast on primetime BBC One in May 2010. Romancing the Stone, a three-part series tracing the history of British sculpture, was broadcast on BBC Four the following year. The Perfect Suit, exploring the history of the lounge suit, went out on BBC Four in the summer of 2011, shortly before The World’s Most Expensive Paintings was shown on BBC One. Examining the stories behind the top 10 prices ever achieved for paintings sold at auction, the latter programme included an encounter with art collector Jeffrey Archer that several publications highlighted as a ‘moment of the week’. Since 2009, Sooke has reported regularly for The Culture Show on BBC Two. He has fronted several hour-long Culture Show ‘specials’, including one about art during the Second World War, and another that went behind the scenes at the 2011 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. In 2011, Radio 4 broadcast his documentary about Milton Glaser, the graphic designer who created the iconic I ‘Heart’ NY logo.

His next series, Treasures of Ancient Rome, will be broadcast on BBC Four in spring 2012. He is also working on another Culture Show ‘special’, about the construction of the ArcelorMittal Orbit observation tower in the Olympic Park in east London.

As deputy art critic of The Daily Telegraph, Sooke writes extensively, but not exclusively, about modern and contemporary art. He has reviewed exhibitions at most of Britain’s major museums and galleries, and has covered international festivals, including the Venice Biennale. He has interviewed some of the world’s most celebrated artists and photographers, including Marina Abramovic, Anthony Caro, Tony Cragg, William Eggleston, Gilbert & George, Antony Gormley, Richard Hamilton, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Alex Katz, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Steve McQueen, Yoko Ono, Gabriel Orozco, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Mark Wallinger, and Rachel Whiteread. Since joining the Telegraph as a trainee in 2003, he has also written widely about theatre and film. He has chaired events at literary and arts festivals around Britain, and has contributed to live programmes on both television and radio. In 2010, he was invited to read during the Christmas concert at St Paul’s Cathedral.

He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he read English language and literature, and won the university’s Charles Oldham Shakespeare Prize. After graduating with a First, he studied for an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, specialising in ancient Greek and Roman art. He is married and lives in London.

Reviewing Modern Masters in The Guardian, Sam Wollaston wrote: ‘I hope, for the future Mrs Sooke’s sake, that Alastair is as a good at being a husband as he is at making television. These shows are excellent – clever, lively, scholarly, but not too lecturey; he’s very good at linking his painters with the world outside the studio, and at how these artists have affected the world today.’

In The Times, Sarah Vine wrote: ‘Sooke is an immensely engaging character. He has none of the weighty self-regard that often afflicts art experts and critics; rather he approaches his subjects with a questioning, open, exploratory attitude.’