Dr Mark Westgarth

Mark Westgarth is Professor of History of the Art Market at the University of Leeds and was formerly Programme Director MA Arts and Museum Management at the University of Salford. His research interests include the history and theory of museums and galleries, the histories of the art market, and more especially the agency and the social and cultural identity of the art and antiques dealer in the 19th and 20th centuries. His PhD thesis, also funded by the AHRC, investigated the significance of the antique and curiosity dealer in the opening decades of the 19th century. His publications include, The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain 1815-1850: the commodification of historical objects (Routledge, 2020); SOLD! The Great British Antiques Story (Bowes Museum/Archipelago 2019), the exhibition catalogue for the SOLD! exhibition at The Bowes Museum (January to May 2019); A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers (Regional Furniture Society, 2009; republished 2011); 'Florid-Looking speculators on art and virtue: the London picture trade c.1850' in Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich (eds.), The Rise of the London Art Market 1850-1939 (MUP, 2011). Mark is Director of the Centre for the Study of the Art & Antiques Market at the University of Leeds and is Board Member and Chair of the Museums and Galleries History Group. He was on the advisory board for the Burlington Magazine Index Project and was Chair of The Leeds Art Fund.