“Reports this week of a conflict at the Royal Academy between the head of exhibitions, Norman Rosenthal, and the secretary, Lawton Fitt, may be the most serious crisis a British gallery has faced since 1988, when an inexperienced director at the V&A caused an international outcry by dismissing five of the museum’s senior keepers.” Richard Dorment observes that “the president and council of the Royal Academy would be mad even to contemplate sacking a man of Rosenthal’s stature. Is it possible that they have forgotten what he has done for the Academy – or, for that matter, done for this country?”