Sir Herbert Read

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Read, Sir Herbert (1893–1968). British poet and critic, who throughout the middle third of the 20th century was virtually unchallenged as his country's foremost advocate and interpreter of modern art. He was born at Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire, of farming stock, and studied at Leeds University before serving in France in the First World War; his distinguished record as a soldier lent an added authority to his later pacifism. After the war he worked at the Treasury, then in the ceramics department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1922–31, before becoming Watson Gordon professor of fine arts at Edinburgh University, 1931–3. By this time he had published several collections of his verse as well as various art-historical studies (including English Stained Glass, 1926, still a standard work), critical works on English literature, and the first of his philosophical works on art, The Meaning of Art (1931). In 1933 he returned to London as editor of the Burlington Magazine (1933–9) and his attention turned increasingly to contemporary art; in 1933 he published Art Now, the first comprehensive defence in English of modern European art, in 1934 he edited the modernist manifesto Unit One, and in 1936 he was one of the organizers of the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. At this time he lived near Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Ben Nicholson, and he acted as the public mouthpiece of the group of artists of which they were the centre; Moore later wrote that ‘In the 1930s he was available to all in the way that he could see both sides of any situation and act as a link between the different things that were going on.’ In the late 1930s Read planned a Museum of Modern Art in London, of which he would have been the first director. The Second World War ruined the plans, but some of the ideas bore fruit in the Institute of Contemporary Arts, which he founded with Roland Penrose in 1947 as ‘an adult play-centre … a source of vitality and daring experiment'.

In 1950 Read returned to Yorkshire, but he spent a good deal of his time abroad as a speaker at international conferences. He also kept up a steady stream of books. His most influential work was probably Education Through Art (1943), which used the insights of psychoanalysis to promote the idea of teaching art as an aid to the development of the personality. His other books include A Concise History of Modern Painting (1959) and A Concise History of Modern Sculpture (1964), both of which have been frequently reprinted. By the time he wrote these surveys he was becoming disenchanted with contemporary artistic developments, and in 1967 he described ‘the anti-art manifestations of Tinguely, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Warhol and Oldenburg’ as a ‘confused but comprehensible form of Nihilism … behind them is a deep despair, a denial of the meaningfulness of life'. In his later years he was regarded as ‘something of a sage. It was not a role to which he ever pretended, for he was a man of conspicuous modesty’ (DNB). His reputation has remained undimmed since his death: in the winter 1993 issue of Modern Painters, David Cohen wrote: ‘ Herbert Read was indubitably a giant in the history of modernism. Alfred H. Barr is his only serious rival as the most influential English-speaking advocate of contemporary art between the early 1930s, when Read first turned his professional attention to the subject, and his death in 1968.’ However, not everyone was impressed by Read and his work. John Skeaping wrote: ‘I distrusted him—his style of writing struck me as a specious use of pseudo-intellectual jargon', and he quoted Edith Sitwell describing him as ‘That crashing bore'.

Read, Sir Herbert (b Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire, 4 Dec. 1893; d Stonegrave, Yorkshire, 12 June 1968). British poet and critic, who throughout the middle third of the 20th century was virtually unchallenged as his country's foremost advocate and interpreter of modern art. After serving with distinction in the army in the First World War he worked at the Treasury, then in the ceramics department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1922–31, before becoming professor of fine arts at Edinburgh University, 1931–3. By this time he had published several collections of his verse as well as various art-historical studies (including English Stained Glass, 1926, still a standard work), critical works on English literature, and the first of his philosophical works on art, The Meaning of Art (1931). In 1933 he returned to London as editor (1933–9) of the Burlington Magazine, Britain's foremost scholarly art journal, and his attention turned increasingly to contemporary art; in 1933 he published Art Now, the first comprehensive defence in English of modern European art, and in 1934 he edited the modernist manifesto Unit One. At this time he lived near Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Ben Nicholson, and he acted as the public mouthpiece of the group of artists of which they were the centre. He was interested in Surrealism as well as abstraction and was one of the organizers of the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London. In 1947 he was co-founder (with Roland Penrose) of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Among his many books the most influential was probably Education through Art (1943), which used the insights of psychoanalysis to promote the idea of teaching art as an aid to the development of the personality. His other books include A Concise History of Modern Painting (1959) and A Concise History of Modern Sculpture (1964), both of which have been frequently reprinted. By the time he wrote them he was becoming disenchanted with contemporary artistic developments, but he was known as ‘The Pope of Modern Art’ and was regarded as ‘an international authority and indeed something of a sage. It was not a role to which he ever pretended, for he was a man of conspicuous modesty’ (DNB).

Read, Sir Herbert (1893–1968). British poet and critic, who throughout the middle third of the 20th century was virtually unchallenged as his country's foremost advocate and interpreter of modern art. After serving with distinction in the army in the First World War he worked at the Treasury, then in the ceramics department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1922–31, before becoming professor of fine arts at Edinburgh University, 1931–3. By this time he had published several collections of his verse as well as various art-historical studies (including English Stained Glass, 1926, still a standard work), critical works on English literature, and the first of his philosophical works on art, The Meaning of Art (1931). In 1933 he returned to London as editor (1933–9) of the Burlington Magazine, Britain's foremost scholarly art journal, and his attention turned increasingly to contemporary art; in 1933 he published Art Now, the first comprehensive defence in English of modern European art, and in 1934 he edited the modernist manifesto Unit One. At this time he lived near Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Ben Nicholson, and he acted as the public mouthpiece of the group of artists of which they were the centre. He was interested in Surrealism as well as abstraction and was one of the organizers of the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London. In 1947 he was co-founder (with Roland Penrose) of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Among his many books the most influential was probably Education through Art (1943), which used the insights of psychoanalysis to promote the idea of teaching art as an aid to the development of the personality. His other books include A Concise History of Modern Painting (1959) and A Concise History of Modern Sculpture (1964), both of which have been frequently reprinted. By the time he wrote them he was becoming disenchanted with contemporary artistic developments, but he was known as ‘The Pope of Modern Art’ and was regarded as ‘an international authority and indeed something of a sage. It was not a role to which he ever pretended, for he was a man of conspicuous modesty’ (DNB).

Sir Herbert Read 1893-1968, English poet and critic. His studies at the Univ. of Leeds were interrupted by World War I, in which he served with a Yorkshire regiment. After the war he completed his education. His first volume of poems, Naked Warriors (1919), treats the horrors of war. An advocate of free verse, he published poetry all his life; his last volume of Collected Poems was published in 1966. Read was an important critic of both art and literature, and he influenced the treatment of these subjects in British education. As an art critic he defined and advocated various modern art movements and aided the careers of many British artists, notably Henry Moore. His works of art criticism include The Innocent Eye (1933), Art and Industry (1934), Art and Society (1936), Education Through Art (1943), Art Now (1948), The Grass Roots of Art (1961), and Art and Alienation: The Role of the Artist in Society (1967). As a literary critic, Read reasserted the importance of the 19th-century English Romantic authors, most notably in The True Voice of Feeling: Studies in English Romantic Poetry (1953). His other works of literary criticism include Form in Modern Poetry (1932), Coleridge as Critic (1949), and Phases of English Poetry (1950). Read also wrote many essays, some of which are collected in The Cult of Sincerity (1969).

Bibliography: See his autobiographical The Contrary Experience (1974); studies by W. T. Harder (1972) and G. Woodcock (1972).

Read, Sir Herbert (Edward) (1893–1968), served in France throughout the First World War. The first volumes of his spare, taut poems (much influenced by Imagism) were Songs of Chaos (1915) and Naked Warriors (1919), largely based on the war; these were followed by various volumes of collected poems, a long poem, The End of a War (1933), and the final Collected Poems of 1966. His critical work includes studies of Wordsworth, Malory, Sterne, and others; Form in Modern Poetry (1932), The True Voice of Feeling (1953), and Essays in Literary Criticism (1969) contain much of his most valuable work. Many publications on art include Art and Industry (1934) and Education through Art (1943). His personal prose writing includes two records of trench life, In Retreat (1925) and Ambush (1930); The Innocent Eye (1933), a brief autobiography of his Yorkshire childhood, and a full autobiography, The Contrary Experience (1963); and his only novel, The Green Child (1935).

Read, Sir Herbert Edward (1893–1968). British critic and writer. He was a leading supporter of Modernism in the 1930s, and edited Unit One: The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture (1934). His The Meaning of Art (1931), Art Now (1933), Art and Industry (1934), Surrealism (1936), Art and Society (1936), and Education Through Art (1943) were reprinted several times, and were very influential in spreading the gospel of Modernism in the English-speaking world. His Concise History of Modern Painting (1959) and Concise History of Modern Sculpture (1964) further enhanced his reputation. He edited the Burlington Magazine (1933–9)

Bibliography

Chilvers, Osborne, & Farr (eds.) (1988);
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004);
Jane Turner (1996)