Geraldine Norman was born in Wales in 1940 and brought up in Oxford. She has a BA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford and joined The Times as a statistician in 1962. In 1967 she launched the Times-Sotheby index of art prices and in 1969 became The Times Sale Room Correspondent. In 1971, she married author and playwright Frank Norman, best known for his memoir of prison life Bang to Rights. She was director of the Hermitage Development Trust and has written extensively on its artworks as well as the investigation of forgers and fakes in the art world.