BIOGRAPHY AND BACKGROUND

Paul Atterbury specialises in the art, architecture, design and decorative arts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

 

Trained initially as a graphic designer, he later studied art history and then worked for Sotheby Publications, as an historical advisor for Royal Doulton and then as editor of Connoisseur magazine. Since 1981 he has been a freelance writer, lecturer, broadcaster and exhibition curator, in this capacity usually for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His recent exhibitions there include Pugin: A Gothic Passion (1994) and Inventing New Britain: The Victorian Vision (2001).

 

Paul has written or edited over thirty books, mostly on ceramics, but he is also known for his travel writing, and for books on railways and canals, and has recently published a couple of books on Eype and West Bay, both Dorset villages as seen through old postcards.

 

For the last fourteen years he has been a member of BBC TV's Antiques Roadshow team of experts, working usually in the miscellaneous section which gives him ample opportunity to explore the antiques and collectables of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During this time he has taken part in over a hundred Roadshows and has also appeared regularly on the Great Antiques Hunt, The Antiques Show and on Hidden Treasures on BBC Radio Four.