William Edward Gompertz[ BBC News appoints Will Gompertz as first Arts Editor BBC Press Office, 28 August 2009] before moving to a position as the Barbican Centre's Artistic Director from 1 June 2021.
Family and education
Gompertz is the son of general practitioner Hugh Gompertz
OBE and a second cousin of Simon Gompertz, at one time personal finance correspondent for
BBC News.
[ Will Gompertz: "We're brought up to be intimidated by art" The Observer 25 July 2010 Retrieved 29 March 2011] He is a relation of Benjamin,
Isaac Gompertz and
Lewis Gompertz.
He was born in
Tenterden,
Kent, and attended Dulwich Preparatory School, in Cranbrook, Kent and then
Bedford School. He was expelled from school aged 16 and left with no
A-levels.
Gompertz married teacher Kate Anderson, daughter of Sir Eric Anderson, in 1993 and they have three sons and one daughter.
Career
Gompertz was previously director of
Tate Media, and appeared in a show at the
Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 called
Double Art History.
[ BBC News hires Tate Media's Will Gompertz as arts editor The Guardian, 2 September 2009] Gompertz has written extensively for
The Guardian and
The Times newspapers. He is the author of
What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye and
Think Like an Artist.
It was announced, on 4 August 2023, that he would take over as Director of London's Sir John Soane's Museum from January 2024.
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