Herbert Read
| Herbert Read | |
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| Born | Herbert Edward Read 4 December 1893 Muscoates, North Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 12 June 1968 (aged 74) Stonegrave, North Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Occupation | Art historian, modern art historian, and literary and art critic |
| Nationality | English |
| Period | 1915–68 |
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC (/riːd/; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism.
The son of a farmer, Read was born at Muscoates near Nunnington, about four miles south of Kirkbymoorside in the North Riding of Yorkshire. His studies at the University of Leeds were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War, during which he served with the Green Howards in France. He received the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order, and reached the rank of captain. During the war, Read founded the journal Arts and Letters with Frank Rutter, one of the first literary periodicals to publish work by T. S. Eliot.
Read's first volume of poetry was Songs of Chaos, self-published in 1915. His second collection, published in 1919, was called Naked Warriors, and drew on his experiences fighting in the trenches of the First World War. His work, which shows the influence of Imagism and of the Metaphysical poets, was mainly in free verse. His Collected Poems appeared in 1946. As a critic of literature, Read mainly concerned himself with the English Romantic poets (for example, The True Voice of Feeling: Studies in English Romantic Poetry, 1953) but was also a close observer of imagism. He published a novel, The Green Child. He contributed to the Criterion (1922–39) and he was for many years a regular art critic for The Listener.
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