Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) London talks with the commissioned artists for the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards 2015.
Martin works on the Photographs Gallery at the V&A, drawing exhibitions from the museum’s collection. He has curated numerous UK and international touring shows, and is currently working towards an exhibitions of photographs by Richard Learoyd and a major retrospective of Paul Strand’s work. He was presented with the Royal Photographic Society J Dudley Johnston Award in 2013 in recognition of ‘major achievements in the field of photographic criticism and the history of photography, awarded for sustained excellence over a period of time.
Alongside numerous publications of his own he has written articles and essays on various contemporary photographers for publications and journals including Photoworks and Aperture, entries for The Folio Society Book of the 100 Greatest Photographs (2006) and the Encyclopaedia of Nineteenth Century Photography (2007) and contributed to international exhibition catalogues on the role of photography in the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts Movements. Martin was editor of Talking Photography, a catalogue of the audio and visual collections of the British Library National Sound Archive, where he is an interviewer for the Oral History of British Photography project.
