Laura Cumming has been the art critic of The Observer (London) since 1999. Previously, she was arts editor of The New Statesman (UK), literary editor of The Listener (UK), and deputy editor of Literary Review. She is a former columnist for The Herald (Scotland) and has contributed to the Evening Standard (London), The Guardian, L’Express, and Vogue. Her book The Vanishing Velazquez was a New York Times bestseller, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was longlisted for the Bailie Gifford Prize.