Frances Spalding (née Crabtree, born 16 July 1950)[1] is a British art historian, writer and a former editor of The Burlington Magazine.
Frances Crabtree studied at the University of Nottingham and gained her PhD for a study of Roger Fry. She taught art history at Sheffield City Polytechnic (19781988) before becoming a freelance writer and curator. She returned to academic work to take up the post of professor of Art History at Newcastle University in 2000.[2]
Spalding specialises in 20th-century British art, biography and cultural history and her work includes essays, criticism and reviews. She curated the 2003 exhibition "John Piper in the 1930s: Abstraction on the Beach" at Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London.[3] She has also written a study of poet Stevie Smith and a biography of John and Myfanwy Piper. When reviewing John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art, The Independent said of Spalding "At her scintillating best, she is both a brilliant encapsulator and shrewd summer-up; above all, an enthusiast and advocate whose wisdom makes you eager for her subject."[4]
Spalding was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984.[5] She was appointed as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Birthday Honours 2005 for services to literature. She is a trustee of the Charleston Trust.
Spalding became the Editor of The Burlington Magazine in September 2015, leaving in August 2016.[6]
In 1974, Crabtree married Julian Spalding; the couple divorced in 1991.