{{Short description|British journalist and author}} {{Use British English|date=March 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = | image = Laura Cumming 20231129.jpg | alt = | caption = Laura Cumming, Hatchards, London, 2023 | birth_date = | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = | occupation = Journalist and art critic | father = James Cumming | spouse = | children = | years_active = {{circa|1990}}–present | known_for = | notable_works = ''The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez'' (2016);<br/>''On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons'' (2019) | awards = | website = }}
'''Laura Cumming''' is a British journalist who is the art critic of ''The Observer'' newspaper, a position she has held since 1999. Before that she worked for ''The Guardian'', the ''New Statesman'' and the BBC. In addition to her career in journalism, Cumming has written well-received books on self-portraits in art and the discovery of a lost portrait by Diego Velázquez in 1845. ''The Vanishing Man'' was a ''New York Times'' bestseller<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Vanishing-Velazquez/Laura-Cumming/9781476762180|title=The Vanishing Velázquez|date=8 November 2016|via=www.simonandschuster.com}}</ref> and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://james-tait-black.ed.ac.uk/winners/biography|title=Biography winners | The James Tait Black Prizes|date=29 October 2024|website=The James Tait Black Prizes}}</ref>
==Early life== Cumming is the daughter of the Scottish artists James Cumming and Betty Elston, his wife. She initially studied literature, came to London in her early twenties, and worked there in publishing in the 1980s, though she found her 'sense of life' came 'through streams of pictures' rather than sentences.<ref>{{cite web |last=Cumming |first=Laura |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/25/fabritius-my-father-and-me-how-art-has-shaped-my-life |title=Fabritius, my father and me: how art has shaped my life | website=The Guardian |date=25 June 2023 |access-date= 11 July 2023}} (Extract from ''Thunderclap'')</ref> A memoir based on her mother's disappearance for five days as a child, ''On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons'',{{efn|{{aka}} ''Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child'', for US Edition}} was published in July 2019 by Chatto.<ref>{{Cite book|title=On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons|last=Cumming|first=Laura|publisher=Chatto & Windus|year=2019|isbn=9781784742478|location=London|oclc=1103978861}}</ref> It was shortlisted for the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist revealed |url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/women-dominate-baillie-gifford-prize-non-fiction-shortlist-1101941 |first=ark|last=Chandler|date=22 October 2019|access-date=2019-10-23 |website=The Bookseller}}</ref>
==Career== Cumming was literary editor of the BBC's ''The Listener'', assistant editor of the ''New Statesman'', and the presenter of ''Nightwaves'' on BBC Radio 3.<ref>Cover notes, ''A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits''. Harper Press, London, 2009. {{ISBN|9780007118434}}</ref><ref>{{Cite press release |first=Patrick |last=Walsh |title=Author: Laura Cumming |publisher=Conville & Walsh |date=2016-06-30 |url=http://www.convilleandwalsh.com/index.php/authors/author/laura-cumming/ |access-date=2026-03-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630154905/http://www.convilleandwalsh.com/index.php/authors/author/laura-cumming |archive-date=2016-06-30 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Cumming has written two books on art. Her work on self-portraits, ''A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits'' (2009), was praised by Serena Davies in ''The Daily Telegraph'' for seeking to "persuade us, with sumptuous superlatives, how great her subjects are" rather than baffling the reader with art theory as some other works do.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits by Laura Cumming: review |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5893547/A-Face-to-the-World-On-Self-Portraits-by-Laura-Cumming-review.html |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=The Telegraph|first=Serena|last=Davies}}</ref> Her work on the discovery of a lost Diego Velázquez portrait by John Snare in 1845, ''The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez'' (2016), was described by Honor Clerk in ''The Spectator'' as "a study in obsession, a paean of praise to an artist of genius, a detective story and, for the author, an exorcism of grief".<ref>[http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/velazquezs-vanishing-act/ Velázquez’s vanishing act.] Honor Clerk, ''The Spectator'', 2 January 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2016.</ref> Fisun Güner, in ''The Independent'' praised the "beautifully compelling accounts of Velázquez's paintings" that revealed as much about Cumming's own relationship with the work of Velázquez as it did about the ostensible subject of the book.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-01-05 |title=The Vanishing Man: in Pursuit of Velázquez by Laura Cumming, review |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-vanishing-man-in-pursuit-of-velazquez-by-laura-cumming-book-review-a6791136.html |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref> Jonathan Beckman in ''The Times'', however, felt that the book was "breathless" and that its source materials (or lack thereof) didn't completely support the weight that Cumming placed on them.<ref>"Velázquez goes missing", ''The Times Saturday Review'', 9 January 2016, p. 15.</ref> The book was serialised on BBC Radio 4 in a reading by Siobhan Redmond.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, The Vanishing Man, Episode 1 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06x8vq2 |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}}</ref>
Cumming's book ''On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons'', published in 2019, was shortlisted for the Costa Book award in the Biography and Memoir category, 2019.<ref>{{Cite web |title=These Are The 20 Books Nominated For The Costa 2019 Book Awards |url=https://www.bustle.com/p/the-costa-book-awards-2019-shortlist-has-been-released-itll-give-you-serious-reading-inspo-19407873 |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=Bustle |language=en}}</ref> Her 2023 book, ''Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death'', received positive reviews; writing for ''The Washington Post'', Becca Rothfeld called it "an autobiography in images that doubles as a tour through the art of the [17th-century] Dutch Golden Age" and noted how "[I]ts elegiac meanderings return time and time again to the figure of Carel Fabritius",<ref>{{Cite news |first=Becca |last=Rothfeld |author-link=Becca Rothfeld |title='Thunderclap' combines first-rate art history with deeply felt memoir |work=The Washington Post |date=2023-06-28 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/06/28/thunderclap-laura-cumming-review/ |url-access=subscription |access-date=2026-03-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260324231347/https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/06/28/thunderclap-laura-cumming-review/ |archive-date=2026-03-24 |url-status=live}}</ref> while ''Time'' included the book on its year-end list of "The 100 Must-Read Books of 2023".<ref>{{Cite magazine |author=<!--not stated, or generic Staff--> |title=The 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 {{!}} ''Thunderclap'' by Kaura Cumming |magazine=Time |date=2023-11-14 |url=https://time.com/collection/must-read-books-2023/6332688/thunderclap/ |access-date=2024-06-04}}</ref>
==Selected publications== === UK first editions === *''Julian Barnes'' pamphlet<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bibliography.julianbarnes.com/julian-barnes-by-laura-cumming-book-trust-1990-pamphlet|title=Julian Barnes by Laura Cumming (Book Trust, 1990; Pamphlet) – Julian Barnes Bibliography|date=11 September 2017}}</ref> Book Trust in association with the British Council, London, 1990. *''A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits''. HarperPress, London, 2009. {{ISBN|9780007118434}} *''The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez''. Chatto & Windus, London, 2016, {{ISBN|9780701188443}} *''On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons''. Chatto & Windus, London, 2019, {{ISBN|9781784742478}} *''Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death''. Chatto & Windus, London, 2023, {{ISBN| 9781982181765}}
=== US editions === * ''The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th-Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece'' Scribner, New York, 2016, {{ISBN|9781476762159}}. * ''Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child''. Scriber, New York, 2019, {{ISBN| 9781501198717}} ** note: US version of ''On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons'' * ''Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death''. Scribner, New York, 2023, {{ISBN|9781982181741}}
==Notes== {{notelist}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cumming, Laura}} Category:Living people Category:British art critics Category:British journalists Category:British non-fiction writers Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Place of birth missing (living people)