Profile | Venetia Porter

Mavi Boncuk |
Venetia Porter Assistant Keeper (Curator) The British Museum | Islamic and contemporary Middle East

Department: Middle East | T: +44 (0)20 7323 8843| E: vporter @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Venetia is a curator responsible for the collection of Islamic art, in particular of the Arab World and Turkey as well as the collection of the modern and contemporary art of the Middle East. She was previously curator of Islamic coins in the Department of Coins and Medals. She studied Arabic and Islamic art at Oxford University and obtained her Ph.D on the medieval history and architecture of the Yemen from the University of Durham. Her particular areas of research and interest are Arabic inscriptions, amulets and seals, ceramics and contemporary Middle Eastern art which are the focus of her lectures and publications.

Publications:
Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East, Catalogue of the exhibition at the British Museum (British Museum Press London 2006)
Mightier than the Sword, with Heba Salih Catalogue of the exhibition at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur 2004)
Inscriptions of Companions of the Prophet in the Merv oasis’ in Islamic Reflections Arabic Musings: Studies in Honour of Alan Jones, ed. R. Hoyland and P. Kennedy, (Oxford 2004)
The architectural decoration' and with Y. al-Nasiri ‘The inscriptions’, in al-Radi, S. The 'Amiriya in Rada', Oxford Studies in Islamic Art XIII, 1998
Islamic Tiles, London, (British Museum Press 1995, reprinted most recently 2005)