Virginia Margaret Spate AC FAHA (née Obione; 1937 – 12 August 2022) was a British-born Australian art historian and academic.
She lived in Burma as a child until her family was evacuated during the Pacific War.
She then received a PhD from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, United States.
[4] She was elected fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1981[5] and appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge in 1998–99.
[6] Spate was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC)—Australia's highest civilian honour—on 11 June 2018, for eminent service to higher education, particularly to art history and theory and to the advanced study of the contemporary arts, as an academic, author and curator, and as a role model for young art historians.