Waldemar Januszczak (born 12 January 1954) is an English art critic and television documentary producer and presenter. Formerly the art critic of ''

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 ...

'', he took the same role at ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' in 1992, and has twice won the Critic of the Year award.

Life

Januszczak was born in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, to

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

refugees who had arrived in England after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In Poland his father had been a policeman in

Sanok Sanok (in full the Royal Free City of Sanok — pl, Królewskie Wolne Miasto Sanok, rue, Санок, ''Sanok'', ua, Cянік, ''Sianik'', la, Sanocum, yi, סאניק, ''Sonik'') is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of south-eastern ...

, a job which included exposing Communists. In the UK he worked as a railway carriage cleaner, but died, aged 57, when a train ran over him at Basingstoke railway station. His widow, then aged 33, found work as a dairymaid. Waldemar was one year old at the time."Waldemar Januszczak: Searching for the Father I Never Knew", ''The Sunday Times'', 15 January 2006.
Retrieved 29 March 2006 The young Januszczak attended

Divine Mercy College Divine Mercy College is a former Roman Catholic independent secondary boarding school for boys in the English county of Buckinghamshire. It was co-founded in 1953 by rev. Józef Jarzębowski of the Marian Fathers with lay members of the Polish co ...

, a school for the children of Polish refugees which the

Congregation of Marian Fathers The Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary ( la, Congregatio Clericorum Marianorum ab Immaculata Conceptionis Beatissimae Virginis Mariae) is a Catholic male clerical religious congregation fou ...

had set up at

Fawley Court Fawley Court is a country house, with large mixed-use grounds standing on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in the English county of Buckinghamshire. Its former deer park extended east into the Henley Park area of Henley-on-Thames, Ox ...

Henley-on-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buc ...

. According to Januszczak in "Holbein: Eye of the Tudors", he attended St Anne's (Roman Catholic) Primary School in

Caversham, Berkshire Caversham is a suburb of Reading, England. Originally a village founded in the Middle Ages, it lies on the north bank of the River Thames, opposite the rest of Reading. Caversham Bridge, Reading Bridge, Christchurch Bridge, and Caversham Lock pr ...

, from ages 5 to 11.

Career

After studying

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic vis ...

at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, Januszczak became an art critic, and then arts editor, of ''

''. In 1990 he was appointed head of arts at

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

television and in 1992 he became art critic for ''

''. He has been voted ''Critic of the Year'' twice by the

Press Association PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and re ...

. Januszczak has been described as "a passionate art lover, art critic and writer. His presentation style is casual but informed, enthusiastic, evocative and humorous. He bumbles about on our TV screens, doing for art what

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

has done for the natural world," and someone who acts out of "a refusal to present art as elitist in any way. He makes it utterly accessible and understandable.""The Art of Jane Tomlinson"
Retrieved 29 March 2006 In 1997, he took part in a

discussion called ''The Death of Painting'', occasioned by the absence of painters from that year's

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

. The programme was made famous when an apparently drunk

Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, Order of the British Empire, CBE, Associate of the Royal Academy, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawi ...

swore at the other participants and left after ten minutes."Tracey Emin – Artist", h2g2, BBC
Retrieved 29 March 2006 In 2002, when insurance broker and art collector

Ivan Massow Ivan Julian Massow (born 11 September 1967) is a British financial services entrepreneur, gay rights campaigner, and media personality. He is also a former Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He has been active in UK poli ...

lashed out at

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

in general and said that Emin could not "think her way out of a paper bag", Januszczak observed in a letter to ''

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 ...

'' that "thinking" would not be very helpful in those circumstances.Letter: Concepts of Art, ''The Independent'', 21 January 2002.
Retrieved 29 March 2006 In 2004 he differed from most critics in his defence of the art of

Stella Vine Stella Vine (born Melissa Jane Robson, 1969) is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting, with subjects drawn from personal life, as well as from rock stars, royalty, and other celebrities. In 2001, she ...

, singling her out for praise in his otherwise hostile review of the

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the D ...

's ''New Blood'' show ("although I didn't much want to like Vine's contribution, I found I did. It had something"), and continuing to champion her, seeing "a combination of empathy and cynicism that can be startling.""The Picture of Health?", ''The Sunday Times'', 27 November 2005.
Retrieved 29 March 2006 Later that year he took part in a Christmas special critics edition of the television quiz show ''

University Challenge ''University Challenge'' is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. ''University Challenge'' aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC ...

''. Reviewing the exhibition ''Americans in Paris'' at London's

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

in 2006, he described

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

's ''Symphony in White No 1'' as "a clumsy bit of cake-making with thick smudges of white rubbed into the canvas in coarse, dry skid marks". "Even Whistler's renowned mother manages here to underwhelm", he complained.

Hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

ed by artist

Jamie Shovlin Jamie Shovlin (born 1978) is a British conceptual artist. He staged his first exhibition in 2004, at Riflemaker in London, basing it on what he claimed were the drawings of a disappeared schoolgirl called Naomi V. Jelish. He supported this claim ...

, Januszczak later that year 'revealed' in his paper how the 1970s

glam rock Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diver ...

band Lustfaust had "cocked a notorious snook at the music industry in the late 1970s by giving away their music on blank cassettes and getting their fans to design their own covers". The band had never existed outside Shovlin's fiction. Januszczak replied that Shovlin should be applauded for his capacity to remind us of the crucial place of the artist in today's society as he made clear that "Reality simply cannot be trusted any more". In October 2008, Januszczak co-curated a show at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

called ''Statuephilia'', in which modern sculptures by 6 artists were shown next to their more ancient counterparts. The show was inspired during his creation of the series ''The Sculpture Diaries'', a three-part series on sculpture around the world, which was first aired on 31 August 2008 on Channel 4. Waldemar Januszczak has made many appearances on television, on which medium he has presented programmes on the history of art. He has also made appearances on programmes such as ''

The Culture Show ''The Culture Show'' is a British magazine programme about books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts. The show was broadcast weekly on BBC Two between 2004 and 2015. Early history Launched in November 2004, th ...

'' and ''

Newsnight Review ''The Review Show'' was a British discussion programme dedicated to the arts which ran, under several titles, from 1994 to 2014. The programme featured a panel of guests who reviewed developments in the world of the arts and culture. History ' ...

''. Beginning on 27 November 2012, he presented a four-part series '' The Dark Ages: An Age of Light'' about the art and architecture of the Dark Ages on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

. In October 2019 he directed and narrated ''Handmade in Bolton'' on BBC Four, a short documentary series featuring

Shaun Greenhalgh Shaun Greenhalgh (born 1961) is a British artist and former art forger. Over a seventeen-year period, between 1989 and 2006, he produced a large number of forgeries. With the assistance of his brother and elderly parents, who fronted the sal ...

and fronted by

Janina Ramirez Janina Sara Maria Ramirez (; ' Maleczek; born 7 July 1980), sometimes credited as Nina Ramirez, is a British art historian, cultural historian, and TV presenter. She specialises in interpreting symbols and examining works of art within their hi ...

. He currently produces content for the art channel Perspective, part of the Little Dot Studios Network (

All3Media All3Media Limited is a British worldwide independent television, film and digital production and distribution company based in London, England. The All3Media group comprises more than 40 production and distribution companies from across the U ...

Films

Januszczak has been making films since 1997 with his production company ZCZ Films. * ''The Truth About Art'' (Channel 4, 1998) a three-episode series about why some subjects have such a hold on the human imagination. * ''The Lost Supper'' (Channel 4, 1999) about the restoration of

The Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

. * ''The Cowboy and the Eclipse'' (Channel 4, 1999) about

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, ''Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outside ...

's earthwork sculpture in Cornwall. * ''Mad Tracey from Margate'' (BBC, 1999) about

. * ''Puppy Love'' (Channel 4, 2000) about Januszczak's modest dislike of dogs and intense hatred of dog aficionados. * ''Travels in Virtual Japan'' (Channel 4, 2000) about Japanese technological innovation. * ''Building of the Year'' (Channel 4, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003). Coverage of the annual

Stirling Prize The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The S ...

for new architecture. * '' Picasso: Magic, Sex, Death'' (Channel 4, 2001) with the artist's friend and biographer, John Richardson. (Three-episode series)"Films by Waldemar Janusczak", Movie Mail
Retrieved 28 March 2006 * ''Gauguin: The Full Story'' (BBC, 2003) about

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

. * ''Beijing Swings'' (Channel 4, 2003) about extreme art in Beijing. * ''Every Picture Tells A Story'' (Channel 5, 2003/2004) about the backgrounds of eight masterpieces. (Two 4-episode series) * ''Vincent: The Full Story'' (Channel 4, 2004) about

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

. (Three-episode series) * ''The

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...

Code: Secrets of the

Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel (; la, Sacellum Sixtinum; it, Cappella Sistina ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope in Vatican City. Originally known as the ''Cappella Magna'' ('Great Chapel'), the chapel takes its name ...

'' (Channel 4, 2005). * ''Kazakhstan Swings'' (Channel 4, 2006) about contemporary art in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

. * ''Toulouse-Lautrec: The Full Story'' (Channel 4, 2006) about

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the ...

. * ''Sickert vs Sargent'' (BBC, 2007) about the war between two immigrants–

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 ...

and

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

–for the soul of British art. * ''Paradise Found'' (Channel 4, 2007) about

Islamic architecture Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Islamic world encompasses a wide geographic ar ...

and

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...

. * ''The Happy Dictator'' (Channel 4, 2007) about the former president of

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

. * ''Atlas: Japan Revealed'' (Discovery Channel, 2008). Series 3, Episode 2 in the Discovery Atlas series. (Januszczak was executive producer only; not as an on-camera presenter or narrator.) * ''The Sculpture Diaries'' (Channel 4, 2008) about sculptural depictions of women and leaders, as well as earthworks and land art. (Three-episode series) * '' Baroque! – From St Peter's to St Paul's'' (BBC, 2009). An overview of the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

in many of its key locations. (Three-episode series) * ''

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

: the Man Who Invented Modern Art'' (BBC, 2009) about

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

and his influence on art. * '' Ugly Beauty'' (BBC, 2009) about contemporary art. * ''

William Dobson William Dobson (4 March 1611 (baptised); 28 October 1646 (buried)) was a portraitist and one of the first significant English painters, praised by his contemporary John Aubrey as "''the most excellent painter that England has yet bred''". He ...

The Lost Genius of British Art'' (BBC, 2011) * '' Art of the Night'' (BBC, 2011) * '' Impressionists Painting and Revolution'' (BBC, 2011) (Four-episode series) * '' The Dark Ages: An Age of Light'' (BBC, 2012) (Four-episode series) * ''Rococo: Travel, Pleasure, Madness'' (BBC, 2014) (Three-episode series) * ''Rubens: An Extra Large Story'' (BBC, 2015) * ''Holbein: Eye of the Tudors'' (BBC, 2015) * ''The Renaissance Unchained'' (BBC 4, 2016) (Four-episode series) * ''Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman'' (BBC, 2017) * ''Big Sky Big Dreams Big Art: Made in the USA'' (BBC, 2018) (Three-episode series) * ''Handmade in Bolton'' (BBC, 2019) (Four-episode series) * ''The Art Mysteries'' (BBC, 2020) (Four-episode series)

Judgments

*''On the

(1984):'' :The British art establishment, having already shown unforgivable ignorance and wickedness in its dealings with Turner's own Bequest to the nation, is now bandying his name about in the hope of giving some spurious historical credibility to a new prize cynically concocted to promote the interest of a small group of dealers, gallery directors and critics.The Guardian, 6 November 1984
Retrieved 4 August 2014 from the Frieze blogs pages *''On the

(1985):'' :The Turner Prize, like the root of the Arts Council, the rise of business sponsorship with strings attached, the growing importance of the PR man in art, the mess at the V&A, and the emergence of the ignorant "art consultant" is the direct result of inadequate government support for the arts. Forced out into the business circus, art has had to start clowning around.The Guardian, 4 November 1985

References

External links