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. In 2024 Yale published The Story of Drawing, which was named Book of the Year in the 2024 Apollo Awards.

Susan’s latest book is Constable’s Year, for the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth. It was published in early 2026 by Thames & Hudson, and became a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. She lives in Suffolk.