Iain Gale

Iain was for some 20 years the Deputy Art Critic and Art Critic on two national newspapers, the Independent and the Scotsman and was also for 10 years editor of the National Trust for Scotland magazine and also the founding editor of the magazine Caledonia. He has also written extensively for Country Life Magazine and Scottish Field and was for some years the art editor of The Week. His career has been multi-faceted. Prior to journalism he worked for five years for Christie’s the auctioneers in London and Scotland, his first book was about auctioneering. Iain has led guided art historical tours on the Renaissance to Florence and Venice. He also regularly works as an online tutor in Art History and is planning a new series of podcasts featuring his previous writings on art history and contemporary art. His10 books on art history include monographs on Sisley, Corot, Arthur Melville, William Mactaggart and Matthew Smith and an acclaimed history of Post-Impressionism. He has also written books on museums and interior design and a guide to the novels of Evelyn Waugh. Iain has given lectures on military history to audiences in London and Edinburgh and appeared many times at the Edinburgh Literary Festival and other UK literary festivals. His military lectures are soon to be featured on a new podcast. For the past 12 years Iain has led guided tours to European battlefields, in particular Waterloo, the D Day beaches, Arnhem, Monte Cassino and the WWI Western Front. He is a leading expert on Waterloo, having written 2 books on the subject. Among the subjects covered in his historical novels are Wellington’s campaigns in Spain and Portugal, Napoleon’s Paris, the SBS and SAS in the Aegean islands, El Alamein, and Dunkirk. Iain’s talks topics include: The Grand Tour in Sicily; The Western Greek and Roman architecture of ancient Sicily; The Odyssey - From Homer to Christopher Nolan; Sicily in the history of warfare; Byzantine art in Sicily.