Neil MacGregor
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Neil MacGregor OM AO FSA |
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MacGregor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015
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| Born |
Robert Neil MacGregor 16 June 1946 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Education | The Glasgow Academy, Scotland |
| Alma mater |
New College, Oxford École Normale Supérieure University of Edinburgh Courtauld Institute of Art |
| Occupation | Art historian and museum director |
| Parent(s) | Alexander MacGregor Anna MacGregor |
Robert Neil MacGregor, OM, AO, FSA (born 16 June 1946) is a British art historian and former museum director. He was the editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, and finally Director of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015.
Neil MacGregor was born in Glasgow to two doctors, Alexander and Anna MacGregor. At the age of nine, he first saw Salvador Dalí's Christ of Saint John of the Cross, newly acquired by Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery, which had a profound effect on him and sparked his lifelong interest in art. MacGregor was educated at Glasgow Academy and then read modern languages at New College, Oxford, where he is now an honorary fellow.
The period that followed was spent studying philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (coinciding with the events of May 1968), and as a law student at Edinburgh University, where he received the Green Prize. Despite being called to the bar in 1972, MacGregor next decided to take an art history degree. The following year, on a Courtauld Institute (University of London) summer school in Bavaria, the Courtauld's director Anthony Blunt spotted MacGregor and persuaded him to take a master's degree under his supervision. Blunt later considered MacGregor "the most brilliant pupil he ever taught".
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