Matthew Sturgis (born 1960) is a British historian and biographer.

Early life

Sturgis earned a degree in history at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

Career

Sturgis has written art criticism for '' Harpers & Queens'', travel journalism for ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

'', book reviews for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', and cartoons for the ''Oldie'' and the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

''. ''

'' called his 1998 ''

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He ...

: A Biography'' "impressively researched". Reviewing ''

Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...

: A Life'', Sickert scholar

Richard Shone Richard Shone (born 1949) is a British art historian and art critic specializing in British modern art, and from 2003–15 was the editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''. Career At age 16, Shone was already well enough connected in the Briti ...

concluded, "At last Sickert has the biography he deserves". Another reviewer found Sturgis "marvelous in capturing the sparkling eccentricities of his subject along with the changing fads and fashions to which Sickert was throughout his long life so sensitive". Reviewing ''

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

: A Life'' in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', Anthony Quinn wrote "he is a tremendous orchestrator of material, fastidious, unhurried, indefatigable." The ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'', called it "sympathetic and insightful", and "much better" than the last major biography of Wilde, by

Richard Ellman Richard David Ellmann, FBA (March 15, 1918 – May 13, 1987) was an American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for ''James ...

thirty years earlier.

Personal life

He is married to the art dealer and gallerist

Rebecca Hossack Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...

, and they live in a Georgian house in

Fitzrovia Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urban ...

, London.

Publications

*''1992 and All This'', Macmillan, 1991 *''Passionate Attitudes: The English Decadence of the 1890s'', Macmillan, 1995 *''Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography'', 1998 *''1900 House: Featuring Extracts from the Personal Diaries of Joyce and Paul Bowler and Their Family'' with Mark McCrum, Macmillan, London, 1999. *''Walter Sickert: A Life'', 2005 *''Oscar: A Life'', Head of Zeus, 2018. Published in the U.S. as ''Oscar Wilde: A Life'', Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.

References

Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford 20th-century British historians 21st-century British historians British biographers Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-writer-stub