Dr Susan Owens is an art historian and former V & A curator. Her books include Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (Yale University Press, 2018, co-edited with Nicholas Tromans); The Ghost: A Cultural History (Tate Publishing, 2017); Jonathan Richardson by Himself (Courtauld Gallery / Paul Holberton, 2015); The Art of Drawing: Masters and Methods since 1600 (V & A Publishing, 2013); and Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery (Royal Collection / Yale University Press, 2007), co-authored with David Attenborough.

In 2020 she published Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape (Thames & Hudson), and in 2023 Imagining England’s Past. Her most recent book is The Story of Drawing, published in 2024 by Yale University Press. The Story of Drawing was named Book of the Year in the 2024 Apollo Awards.

Susan has two new projects under way: a book about Constable, and another about the relationship between gardening and art. She lives in Suffolk.