About

A vivid portrait of a Soviet double agent, Anthony Blunt, from his biographer, Miranda Carter.

One of the infamous Cambridge Five spy ring, Anthony Blunt was MI5’s most famous Russian spy and double agent. He was also the most garlanded and powerful British art historian of his generation, a Knight of the Realm, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and recipient of the French Legion d’honneur.

Miranda Carter, his biographer, takes us to the heart of this enigmatic and deeply compartmentalised man: his background, his motivations, how he was recruited, what he did for the Soviet Union, and how he was found out, confessed and exposed as the ‘fourth man’ in 1979. She’ll also discuss how Blunt’s passion for art fascinatingly intertwined with his involvement in espionage