Alastair Sooke

Alastair Sooke has written and presented documentaries on television and radio for the BBC and, is the author of several books about art published by Penguin.

Modern Masters, his widely praised series about modern art, was broadcast on BBC One in 2010. The World's Most Expensive Paintings went out on the same channel the following summer, before BBC Two aired The World's Most Expensive Stolen Paintings at the end of 2013. After the success of Treasures of Ancient Rome, a three-part series on BBC Four in 2012, a follow-up series, Treasures of Ancient Egypt, was shown at the beginning of 2014. He has also presented Romancing the Stone, a three-part history of British sculpture for BBC Four, and Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball, a 90-minute BBC Two film marking the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's novel in 1813.

Since 2009, he has reported regularly for The Culture Show, the BBC's flagship topical arts television series. As well as contributing more than 40 reports to the series, he has also presented a number of full-length Culture Show programmes about various topics and artists including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Venice Biennale, art during the Second World War, Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings, the Orbit sculpture and observation tower in the Olympic Park, the 150th anniversary of London Underground, the portraitist Jonathan Yeo, and the paper cut-outs of Henri Matisse. His more recent Culture Show Specials, about women Pop artists and Stonehenge, were broadcast on BBC Two in 2014.

BBC