Christopher White (2) (1930–2026)

From 1950 until 1954 Professor Sir Christopher White was an undergraduate at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University (B.A. Hons, 1954; D. Phil, 1970). In 1954 he was appointed an Assistant Keeper in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum; in 1965 he became a Director of P. and D. Colnaghi, specialising in old master drawings, leaving in 1971 to serve as Curator of Graphic Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, when he also taught at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. In 1973 he was appointed Director of Studies at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, also serving as Visiting Professor in the Department of History of Art, Yale University. In 1985 he left to become Director of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, from which he retired in 1997. Subsequently he served as a Trustee for the Victoria & Albert Museum (1997-2004), the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1999-2008), and as a member of the Committee of the National Art Collections Fund (1998-2005). He was appointed CVO in 1995 and knighted in 2001.