Matthew Collings

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Matthew Collings (born 1955 in London) is a British art critic, writer, broadcaster, and artist. He is married to Emma Biggs, with whom he makes art.

He started at Artscribe magazine, working in production in 1979 and later becoming editor from 1983 to 1987, earning a Turner Prize commendation in 1987 for his work there.

Collings then moved into television. He was a producer and presenter on the BBC’s The Late Show from 1989 to 1995. He helped bring Martin Kippenberger to the BBC studios and interviewed Georg Herold while the artist painted a large canvas with beluga caviar. He gave Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst their first major exposure on British TV. He also wrote and presented BBC documentaries on artists such as Donald Judd, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Willem de Kooning, as well as on broader art history topics.

After leaving the BBC, he wrote Blimey! From Bohemia to Britpop: The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst, published in 1997. The book was very successful and described by Artforum as one of the best-selling contemporary-art books ever. The following year, he created and presented Channel 4’s This is Modern Art, which won a BAFTA in 2000. He continued with more Channel 4 series, including Matt’s Old Masters (2003), Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice (2004), and The Me Generations: Self Portraits (2005). He also presented a Channel 4 program on the Turner Prize from 1997 to 2005 and later The This is Civilisation series (2007).

In 2009, Collings appeared on BBC2’s School of Saatchi. In 2010, he wrote and presented Renaissance Revolution for BBC2, exploring three Renaissance paintings. In 2014, he produced a 90-minute BBC4 documentary on abstract art, The Rules of Abstraction, and appeared in Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery. He also wrote and presented Turner's Thames (2012) for BBC4, about Turner's work.

Since 2015, Collings has been the regular art critic for the Evening Standard. He started a series of drawings called an “alternative art history,” which has sold very well on Instagram.

In late 2025, Waldemar Januszczak reviewed Collings’ solo exhibition in London, calling it the liveliest show in the capital and hoping it would be nominated for the Turner Prize. In 2019, Collings was briefly selected as a Labour Party candidate for South West Norfolk but was suspended the next day.