Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and leading authority on 20th-century British art. Her books include acclaimed biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper, as well as a biography of the poet Stevie Smith. She is Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art. In 2005 she was made a CBE for Services to Literature.