1. Roy Strong has served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
15 Facts About Roy Strong
1. 2.
Roy Colin Strong was born at Winchmore Hill, London Borough of Enfield, the third son of hat manufacturer's commercial traveller George Edward Clement Strong, and Mabel Ada Strong.
3.
Roy Strong then earned his PhD from the Warburg Institute and became a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research.
4.
Roy Strong became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in London in 1959.
5.
Roy Strong proved something of a polarising figure condemned by Hennessy in his 1991 autobiography for 'a thirteen years reign that reduced the museum and its staff to a level from which it will not recover for many years'.
6.
Roy Strong acted as the Director of the fictitious Institute of Physical Culture, where nine volunteers spent 24 days testing three weight loss diets and fitness regimes that were popular in the late Victorian era, the Edwardian era, and the 'roaring' Twenties.
7.
Roy Strong is a notable scholar of Renaissance art, especially English Elizabethan portraiture, on which he has written many books and articles.
8.
Roy Strong had a monthly column in the Financial Times for much of the 1970s and 1980s, and has written articles for many other magazines and newspapers.
9.
On 10 September 1971, Roy Strong married 41-year-old theatrical designer Julia Trevelyan Oman, at Wilmcote church, near Stratford-upon-Avon, with a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
10.
Roy Strong subsequently relented and in 2015 agreed to bequeath the gardens to the horticultural charity "Perennial".
11.
Roy Strong subsequently designed gardens for Gianni Versace at Versace's Lake Como villa, Villa Fontanelle, and Versace's Miami house, Casa Casuarina.
12.
At Versace's behest, Roy Strong designed an Italian garden at Elton John's residence, Woodside, in Old Windsor, Berkshire.
13.
The National Portrait Gallery Collection has seventeen portraits of Roy Strong including a photo and a sketch by Cecil Beaton and an oil painting by Bryan Organ.
14.
Roy Strong was knighted in the 1982 New Year Honours and was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to culture.
15.
The Bodleian Libraries' holdings of Roy Strong papers include manuscripts of his many books on historical, cultural and artistic subjects; personal diaries, correspondence and material relating to the Laskett garden.