Benedict Read

Benedict Read was external examiner for the Cyprus College of Art, Chairman of the Leeds Art Collections Fund for 9 years until his retirement in 2012, and a keen Arsenal supporter.

On his retirement from Leeds University in 2010 he was made Senior Visiting Research Fellow in Fine Art.

In 1991 the first ever exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which Read co-curated with Joanna Barnes, was considered groundbreaking and favourably received.

Ben Read was the first chairman of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association having been involved from its embryonic beginnings at the Sculpture in the North conference in 1991 and was instrumental in having the word sculpture included in the Association’s title. He was also closely involved with setting up the prestigious academic Sculpture Journal and was Chair of its Editorial Board, from its inception in 1997 until his death.

Read studied Classics and English Literature at the University of Oxford and then Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. As well as teaching at the Courtauld Institute, Read was Deputy Witt Librarian there until 1990. Whilst at the Courtauld, Read contributed photographs to the Conway Library that are currently being digitised by the Courtauld Institute of Art as part of the wider Courtauld Connects project.

In 1990 Read was appointed Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Leeds where he was also Director of the MA Sculpture Studies programme from 1990 to 1997, under the auspices of the Henry Moore Foundation. He also taught on the History of Carving course at City & Guilds of London Art School where his lectures on monumental 19th and 20th sculpture coupled with his depth of knowledge were widely appreciated by both staff and students.

Benedict William Read, BA, FSA (26 March 1945 – 20 October 2016) was an English art historian. Usually known as Ben Read, he was the author of numerous books, essays and articles on nineteenth and twentieth century art history, and was one of the most authoritative writers in the second half of the twentieth century on British Victorian sculpture.