Anthony Blunt

Anthony Blunt born 26 September 1907 (d. 1983)

Anthony Frederick Blunt, known as Sir Anthony Blunt, KCVO between 1956 and 1979, was an English art historian, formerly Professor of the History of Art, University of London and director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (1947-74). He was the 'Fourth Man' of the Cambridge Five, a group of spies working for the Soviet Union from sometime in the 30s, to the early 50s.

Blunt was born in Bournemouth, where his father was a vicar. He was educated at Marlborough College, where he was a contemporary of Louis MacNeice, John Betjeman and Graham Shepard, and later read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, but he switched to Modern Languages after his first year, eventually graduating in 1930, to become a teacher of French. He became a Fellow of the college in 1932, and in 1965 was Slade Professor of Fine Art in Cambridge. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society which at that time was Marxist, formed from members of Cambridge University. He was also a homosexual.

After visiting Russia in 1933, Blunt was recruited in 1934 by the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB). A committed Marxist, Blunt was instrumental in recruiting Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.

He joined the British Army in 1939 and in 1940 was recruited to MI5, the military intelligence department. He passed on ULTRA intelligence from decrypted Enigma messages to the Soviet Union.

After the war he became director (1947-1974) of the Courtauld Institute of Art. His students there included Brian Sewell and Nicholas Serota.

In 1945 Blunt became Surveyor of the King's Pictures, and retained the post under Queen Elizabeth II, for which work he was knighted as a KCVO in 1956. He retained the post until 1972. He was particularly knowledgeable on the works of Nicolas Poussin.

Interested in architecture, he attended a summer school in Sicily in 1965; this led to a deep interest in Sicilian architecture, and in 1968 he wrote the only authoritative and in-depth book on Sicilian Baroque.

In 1963 MI5 learned of his espionage from an American, Michael Straight, whom he had recruited. Blunt confessed to MI5 on 23 April 1964, but his spying career remained an official secret until he was publicly named by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979. He was promptly stripped of his knighthood, and removed as an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College.

According to MI5 papers released in 2002, that agency had been told by the writer Moura Budberg in 1950 that Blunt was a member of the Communist Party, but the information was ignored.

Anthony Blunt at Wikipedia
The Cambridge Five