Robert Neil MacGregor (born 16 June 1946 in Glasgow, Scotland) is an art historian and museum director. He was the Director of the National Gallery in London from 1987 to 2002, and then became Director of the British Museum. In 2008 he was appointed chairman of the 'World Collections Programme', for training international curators at British museums.
Neil MacGregor was born in Glasgow to two doctors, Alexander and Anna MacGregor. At the age of ni...
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Robert Neil MacGregor (born 16 June 1946 in Glasgow, Scotland) is an art historian and museum director. He was the Director of the National Gallery in London from 1987 to 2002, and then became Director of the British Museum. In 2008 he was appointed chairman of the 'World Collections Programme', for training international curators at British museums.
Neil MacGregor was born in Glasgow to two doctors, Alexander and Anna MacGregor. At the age of nine he first saw Salvador Dalí's Christ of Saint John of the Cross, newly-acquired by Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery, which had a profound effect on him and sparked his lifelong interest in art. MacGregor read modern languages at New College, Oxford, where he is now an honorary fellow. The period that followed was spent studying philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (coinciding with the événements of May 1968), and as a law student at Edinburgh University, where he received the Green Prize. Despite being called to the bar in...
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