Sir Nicholas Beaver Penny was born on 21 December 1949 and is a British art historian.
11 Facts About Nicholas Penny
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Nicholas Penny then studied for a doctorate at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where he was taught by Michael Kitson.
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Nicholas Penny was the co-author, with Francis Haskell, of Taste and the Antique, a study of the formation of the canon of classical sculpture published in 1984.
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Between 1984 and 1989 Nicholas Penny was keeper of the department of Western art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and professorial fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.
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Again in 2002, Nicholas 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, Nicholas Penny was a candidate for heading the London National Gallery, and this time he succeeded.
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Nicholas Penny oversaw the Gallery's first major acquisition of an American painting, Men of the Docks by George Bellows.
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The Gallery broke its record attendance under Nicholas Penny's leadership, exceeding six million visitors in 2013.
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In June 2014, Nicholas Penny announced his retirement from the National Gallery after six years as Director.
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Nicholas Penny retired in 2015, and was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the Queen's 2015 Birthday Honours.
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Nicholas Penny is a regular contributor to The Burlington Magazine and the London Review of Books.
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Nicholas Penny has published books, exhibition catalogues, and articles on picture frames and Italian Renaissance painting, and on Raphael, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Richard Payne Knight.