Victoria Marion Miro (born 1 July 1945) is a British art dealer, "one of the grandes dames of the

Britart The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

scene"Husband, Stuart
"Go see... the Victoria Miro gallery"
''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', 3 December 2000. Retrieved 27 September 2013. and founder of the Victoria Miro Galleries in London and Venice.

Biography

Miro was born into a Jewish working-class family in London.Jackie Wullschlager
"Gallerist Victoria Miro on the changing art market scene"
''

The Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikk ...

'', 27 September 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2013. Her father ran a

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

grocery stall. Her parents were keen on culture and saved, so the family could take holidays in Italy to see the art there.Peterson, Thane
"Looking for Tomorrow's Artists? Follow Victoria Miro "

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

, 21 February 2001. Retrieved 27 September 2013. She went to school at Copthall grammar school in North London,O'Hagan, Sean
"Victoria Miro, queen of arts"
''

'', 11 July 2010. Retrieved 27 September 2013. then studied painting at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, which she says helped her understand art from the point of view of the artist. For a short period during the early 1970s, she worked as a

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

art teacher. She married businessman Warren Miro and had a son (Oliver) and daughter (Alex) in the 1970s. She says she lost the creative urge during this period because she was "immersed in family". In 1985, when her children were old enough, she started her first gallery in

Cork Street Cork Street is a street in Mayfair in the West End of London, England, with many contemporary art galleries, and was previously associated with the tailoring industry. It is part of the Burlington Estate, which was developed from the 18th centur ...

, London, taking over the gallery space previously owned by dealer Robert Fraser (who was dying of AIDS). In the late 1980s, she opened a second gallery in Florence in Italy, but shut it in 1991 after the art market slump. In 2000 her London gallery moved to a much larger 8,000

square foot The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bang ...

premises in

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

. Two of her babysitters at that time were a couple who later became well-known artists,

Jake Chapman Iakovos "Jake" Chapman (born 1966) and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman (born 1962) are British visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers. Their subject matter tries to be deliberately shocking, including, in 2008, a series of works that ...

, who showed at her gallery, and

Sam Taylor-Wood Samantha Louise Taylor-Johnson OBE ( née Taylor-Wood; 4 March 1967) is a British filmmaker and photographer. Her directorial feature film debut was 2009's ''Nowhere Boy'', a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter a ...

(since married to

Aaron Taylor-Johnson Aaron Perry Taylor-Johnson (né Johnson; born 13 June 1990) is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of the title character in '' Kick-Ass'' (2010) and its 2013 sequel, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) character Pietro Ma ...

). One of her sources for finding new artists was the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

. Through tutor

Peter Doig Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting ''White Canoe'' sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction rec ...

she learnt about

Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trin ...

Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium ...

and

Chantal Joffe Chantal Joffe (born 5 October 1969) is an American-born English artist based in London.Royal Academy of ArtsChantal Joffe RA Elect , Artist , Royal Academy of Arts accessdate: 29/08/2014 Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women ...

. She discovered

Thomas Demand Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. Demand had his first solo exhibition at Tanit Galerie in Munich ...

at another London college,

Goldsmiths A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold. In German, the Goldsmith family name is written Goldschmidt. Goldsmith may also refer to: Places * Goldsmith, Indiana, United States * Goldsmith, New York, United States, a ha ...

. She has a reputation for integrity amongst clients; one of them, Arthur Goldberg, said, "She's a real quality person. That goes somewhere in the art world, where not every dealer can be trusted." She is widely known within the art world but less so outside it, and has been described as "the quiet woman of British art". In 2001, despite her success, she rejected identification with the art establishment, saying "I like to think I still take risks in the gallery with younger artists. To me, 'establishment' just means dull." In October 2013, Miro launched her second art gallery in London, known as Victoria Miro Mayfair. In May 2017 she opened a third gallery Victoria Miro Venice.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miro, Victoria 1945 births Living people English Jews Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Art dealers from London Women art dealers Officers of the Order of the British Empire