John Leighton

Sir John Leighton (born 22 February 1959) is a British art historian, curator and museum director. He is currently Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland. Early life Leighton was born in Belfast in 1959 and educated at Portora Royal School Enniskillen (1970 – 77). He studied Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 1982. He undertook postgraduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, obtaining an MA in 1983. Career Leighton was Curator of 19th-century paintings at the National Gallery in London from 1986 until 1997. He was responsible for numerous exhibitions during this period including Caspar David Friedrich’s Winter Landscapes (1990), Art in the Making: Impressionism (1990), Seurat’s Bathers (1997). He was Director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from 1997 until 2006. Leighton has been Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland since 2006. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008. In recognition of his contribution to the arts, he was appointed Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, awarded an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2009 and a knighthood in December 2012. Leighton is a board member of the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg; chair of the Council of Specialists of the Hermitage Amsterdam and a member of the supervisory board of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.