Herbert Read, ‘Pope of Modern Art’ and Editor of The Burlington Magazine (1933-1939)

In 2007 Benedict (Ben) Read, esteemed art historian and son of Herbert Read, wrote an essay about his father’s editorship of The Burlington Magazine.[1] More recently, he kindly gave the Index Blog permission to re-publish some excerpts from it. Sadly Ben Read died on 20 October 2016 and was unable to edit personally this abridged …

‘The Labours of the Months’ (1923): Herbert Read’s first article for The Burlington Magazine

Surrealist poet, war hero, militant anarchist, art critic and Editor of The Burlington Magazine from 1933 to 1938. Herbert Read, the son of a Yorkshire farmer who became one of the country’s most influential writers, is an intellectual figure who looms large in British history and about whom much has been written. Recently, art historian …

Commemorating Le Corbusier: ‘Corbu’ and The Burlington Magazine

27th August 2015 marks 50 years since the death of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Frequently regarded as the father of modern architecture and a pioneer in his use of reinforced concrete, ‘Corbu’, as he is affectionately referred to by fans and admirers, also made a significant impact on urban planning, furniture design and architectural …

Lucia Moholy. Photographer, art critic and reviewer for The Burlington Magazine (1962-1979)

Photographer Lucia Moholy was born Lucia Schulz on 18 January 1894 in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Moholy’s background and first career was as art historian and writer: she studied philosophy, philology and art history, and she worked as an editor and lecturer in Prague. In 1920 she met the Hungarian artist László …

Francis Howard (1874-1954) and the ‘other’ Grosvenor Gallery (founded 1912)

Given names of art galleries are very important. They may refer to their holdings (the Spanish Gallery, that dealt in old masters from this country), their geographical location (the Sackville Gallery, in Sackville Street), or hint to some culturally shared concept (the Carfax Gallery, founded by Oxford university students, who referred to a monument in …

From exotic genius to precursor of modernity: El Greco in The Burlington Magazine (1903-1920)

In the first two decades of the twentieth century The Burlington Magazine contributed to a definite shift in the criticism of El Greco in Britain: from a biographic, almost novelistic approach into documentary rigour and formal analysis. The first significant mention of El Greco in the Burlington appeared in February 1908 when the aristocratic writer …