'Angel of the North man'." In an interview on BBC Omnibus in 1997 he questioned the significance of the artist John Ward, a Royal Academician, and was felt to have ridiculed an elderly Victor Pasmore. That month three Academicians resigned – Michael Sandle (who subsequently rejoined), Craigie Aitchison and Gillian Ayres. Two cited the treatment of Pasmore as one of their chief reasons for going. The inclusion of Myra, Marcus Harvey's contentious portrait of Myra Hindley, in the Sensation exhibition and Rosenthal himself were other reasons cited. In 2004, Rosenthal was nearly sacked by Lawton Fitt, an ex-Goldmann Sachs banker who took the role of the Royal Academy's Secretary. "Fitt and two others sent me a fax saying my services were no longer required and I should find a solicitor," Rosenthal has said. "I did: Cherie Blair. My biggest regret is not having seen their faces when they received her letter." In 2008, Rosenthal finally resigned from his post at the Royal Academy. It is disputed whether or not he was pushed or left of his own accord. He stayed a further two years in an advisory role, curating an exhibition of Cranach in 2008 and Anish Kapoor in 2009. Writing in The Guardian, art critic Jonathan Jones commented that "The Royal Academy will be an infinitely poorer place without Sir Norman Rosenthal." “He turned a place whose membership and traditions give it a massive leaning towards the conservative into a world-class, influential venue for exhibitions of contemporary art." Life after the Royal Academy Since his resignation from the Royal Academy Rosenthal has continued to curate exhibitions and write on established and emerging contemporary artists. In June 2011, Julian Schnabel, curated by Rosenthal, opened at Venice Museo Correr. In 2012, he curated an exhibition of recent Baselitz paintings for Villa Schöningen in Berlin and also contributed a long career retrospective essay for White Cube Gallery on the painter George Baselitz. The same year he wrote on the painter Raqib Shaw for Ropac Gallery in Paris and on Joseph Beuys for the exhibition Stag Monuments also for Ropac Gallery, Paris. He is an advisor to the Leiden Gallery in New York, a major private collection of 17th-century Dutch Leiden School paintings centred on Rembrandt. He is currently working with New York-based curator Alex Gartenfeld on the exhibition Empire State, a survey of New York art today, which will run at the