Benedict Read
British art historian (1945–2016)
Benedict William Read 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.
Early life
Read was born in Seer Green, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, but grew up in the village of Stonegrave, North Yorkshire. He was the son of art critic and poet Sir Herbert Read and the viola player Margaret Ludwig, the younger brother of the writer Piers Paul Read and younger half-brother of BBC documentary maker John Read. Through his parents he grew up surrounded by people from the art world like Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Peggy Guggenheim and in later life enjoyed recounting anecdotes of life in the Read household.
He went to Ampleforth College, a Roman Catholic boarding school run by Benedictine monks.
Academic career
Read studied classics and English literature at The Queen's College, 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.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Benedict Read” as british art historian (1945–2016). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british art historian (1945–2016). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4887306. VIAF identifies the subject as 59164204. The Library of Congress control number is n82016708. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2016, 1990 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Benedict Read” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.