Mark Haworth-Booth

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Mark Haworth-Booth OBE (born 20 August 1944) is a British academic and historian of photography. He was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 1970 to 2004. [1]

Contents

Family

Hull Bank House, East Riding Yorks Haworth Hall on the River Hull - geograph.org.uk - 259098.jpg
Hull Bank House, East Riding Yorks

His family on his father’s side were minor gentry seated at Hull Bank House, Kingston upon Hull Yorkshire, now Haworth Hall. One of his forebears married the sister of the poet and MP for Hull, Andrew Marvell. [2]

Early life and education

Haworth-Booth was the youngest son of Alderman Antony Haworth-Booth, chairman of East Sussex County Council, and Eva Holm, only daughter of the Danish stage and film actress Astrid Holm and her husband Holger Holm, ballet dancer and film actor.

He was educated at Brighton College before going up to Clare College, Cambridge to read English literature, before undertaking postgraduate studies in Art history at the University of Edinburgh and (much later) creative writing at Exeter (MA with Distinction).

Work

Haworth-Booth started his career at the Manchester Art Gallery in 1969 and worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1970 to 2004, becoming Senior Curator of Photographs and played a major role in building up its collection of photography. He has curated many exhibitions, including Photography: An Independent Art (1997), [3] and Things: A Spectrum of Photography, 1850–2001 (2004). [1] The last photography exhibition he curated, with the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris and the National Portrait Gallery, London, was a centenary retrospective of the pioneering photographer Camille Silvy (1834–1910). It was titled Camille Silvy. Photographer of Modern Life 1834–1910 and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in 2010. [4] He researched the Silvy Exhibition catalogue at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, as a Museum Scholar in 2008. [5]

Inaugural Visiting Professor of Photography at the University of the Arts London (2002–2009), [6] he acted as a consultant on the BBC television series The Genius of Photography, aired in 2007 and again in 2009. [7]

Since retiring from most photographic activity he has focused on environmental campaigning and writing. He has published poems in national magazines since 1986, won awards and published two books of poems: Wild Track (2005) and Wild is the Wind (with Tessa Traeger’s photographs, 2017).

Personal life

Haworth-Booth lives in North Devon with his wife Rosie (née Miles), whom he married in 1979. Rosemary Miles (her professional name) made many important acquisitions of BAME printmakers for the V&A collection and served as the chair of Autograph, the Association of Black Photographers. They have two daughters.

Honours

OBE insignia Medal, order (AM 2001.25.651-1).jpg
OBE insignia

Academic awards

Publications

With essays by

Collections

Haworth-Booth's work is held in the following permanent collection:

See also

Arms

Coat of arms of Mark Haworth-Booth
Crest
(1) A figure representing St Catherine robed and crowned as a queen kneeling affrontée, in the dexter hand a Catherine Wheel, in the sinister hand a Sword supported the point downwards all proper (for BOOTH(ancient));
(2) A stag’s head gules attired or gorged with a collar of roses argent (for HAWORTH).
Escutcheon
Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Argent three Boars’ Heads erect and erased Sable (for BOOTH);
2nd and 3rd, Azure on a Bend between two Stags’ Heads couped Or a Longbow of the Field (for HAWORTH).
Motto
Quod ero spero ("I will be what I wish to be")

References

  1. 1 2 Things: A Spectrum of Photography, 1850-2001 (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2004)
  2. "Mark Haworth-Booth - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk.
  3. Mark Haworth-Booth (ed.) Photography: An Independent Art (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1997)
  4. www.npg.org.uk.
  5. "Pre- and Postdoctoral Fellowships (Getty Foundation)". www.getty.edu.
  6. "www.ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk" (PDF).
  7. "BBC - Photography - Genius of Photography - Gallery - Man Ray". www.bbc.co.uk.
  8. "Hood Medal". rps.org. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  9. "Honorary Fellowship". rps.org. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  10. "Fenton Medal". rps.org. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  11. "Senior Fellows". Royal College of Art.
  12. "Honorary awards 2012" University of the Arts London. Accessed 17 September 2016
  13. "Mark Haworth-Booth - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 28 June 2020.