New Globe Art Critic

This will be in the paper tomorrow but I thought you would all appreciate knowing a bit earlier.

Sebastian Smee, formerly the national art critic at The Australian, will be the Globe's visual-arts critic, beginning Tuesday.

Smee, 35, served as The Australian's critic, based in Sydney, from 2004 until last month. Before that he worked in London, where he was art critic at the Daily Telegraph and a contributor to The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The Independent on Sunday, The Art Newspaper, Modern Painters, and Prospect magazine.

In 1994, he received a bachelor of arts degree, with honors, in fine arts from Sydney University. He reviews books regularly for the Spectator and is himself the author of books and essays on the British painter Lucian Freud as well as ''Side by Side: Picasso v. Matisse.'' Later this year he will publish a monograph on Freud's complete works on paper.

Smee has relocated to Boston with his wife and two children.