Benedict Read

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Benedict William Read (born 1945, Seer Green, Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire) is an English art historian, the son of the eminent art critic and poet Sir Herbert Read. Usually known as Ben Read, he is the author of numerous books, essays and articles on nineteenth and twentieth century art history, and is probably the most authoritative writer on British Victorian sculpture alive today.

Read studied English Literature at the University of Oxford and then studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. As well as teaching at the Coutauld Institute, he was Deputy Witt Librarian there until 1991, when he became Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Leeds.

Amongst his most celebrated books are Victorian Sculpture (Yale, 1982) and Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture (Lund Humphries, 1991), and he has contributed essays to numerous texts including the Albert Memorial (Yale, 2000), the Houses of Parliament (Merrill 2000), and the Edwardians: Secrets and Desires (NGA, 2004). An extremely important essay by Read on British sculpture between the first and second world wars appeared in 1982 in the volume British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century (Whitechapel, 1982).

In addition Benedict Read is chairperson of the editorial committee of the Sculpture Journal, and former president of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, and Chairperson of the Leeds Arts Collections Fund (the LACF).