Bernard Rackham

Born in 1876, Bernard Rackham became one of Britain’s best-known historians of decorative art. He spent much of his working life at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he was especially associated with ceramics, while also building a reputation as a careful scholar of stained glass.

Rackham wrote and edited books that helped introduce wider audiences to subjects that had often seemed highly specialized, including English pottery, porcelain, and medieval glass. His work is still remembered for combining close attention to objects with clear, practical explanation.

He died in 1964, leaving behind a body of writing closely tied to the growth of museum scholarship in the first half of the twentieth century. Even now, he stands out as one of those curators and authors who quietly shaped how generations of readers learned to look at decorative art.