About Simon

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University and a Contributing Editor of the Financial Times. He is the author of 16 books and the writer-presenter of more than 40 documentaries on art, history and literature for BBC2. His art criticism for The New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for criticism in 1996; his film on Bernini from The Power of Art won an Emmy in 2007 and his series on British history and The American Future: a History, won the Broadcast Critics Guild awards.

He won the NCR non-fiction prize for Citizens, National Book Critics Circle award for Rough Crossings, the WH Smith Literary Award for Landscape and Memory. He writes on cooking and food for GQ; fashion for Harper’s Bazaar and on everything else for the Financial Times. He curated the Government Art Collection show Travelling Light at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and has collaborated with Anselm Kiefer, John Virtue and Cecile B. Evans on contemporary art exhibitions and installations. His latest project is The Story of the Jews, which was broadcast on BBC2 in the UK and published as a book in autumn 2013. The second volume of The Story of the Jews is due to be published in autumn 2014.

Read more: Q & A with Simon Schama