Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Martin Roth, museum director

Martin Roth’s blockbuster shows and innovative outreach initiatives reinvigorated the V&A and won him respect far beyond the museum world

Marcus Williamson
Wednesday 09 August 2017 16:45 BST
Comments
A passionate internationalist, Roth said last year that Europe ‘gave hope for a peaceful future, based on sharing, solidarity and tolerance’
A passionate internationalist, Roth said last year that Europe ‘gave hope for a peaceful future, based on sharing, solidarity and tolerance’

Martin Roth, who has died aged 62, was the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2011 to 2016, leading it through an era of enormous growth and change. The V&A Chairman, Nicholas Coleridge, described him as “as a man of prodigious energy, a director with a global reputation both within the museum world and beyond”.

Under Roth’s leadership the V&A saw record numbers of visitors for shows in London and further afield. The museum’s 2013 retrospective for David Bowie, which subsequently went on tour, has been seen by more than a million people worldwide. Roth said of this success “’Bowie’ has really pushed the boundaries of what an exhibition experience could be, so we are thrilled so many visitors have been able to enjoy the exhibition internationally.”

Two years later he risked a £3m budget to stage “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”, celebrating the life and work of the great designer. The gamble paid off, bringing in 500,000 people and boosting the V&A’s total visitors that year to a record 3.9 million. But it wasn’t only big names from pop and fashion that Roth welcomed. Last year’s “Engineering the World: Ove Arup and the Philosophy of Total Design” again saw large crowds for a show on the theme of architecture and engineering. “We may not know it,” noted Roth, “but engineers organise the world we live in.”

Roth was born in Stuttgart in 1955 and studied cultural sciences at the University of Tübingen. He joined the Deutsches Historisches Museum as a curator in 1989, was director of the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden from 1991 to 2000, then director general of Dresden State Art Collections until 2011.

His time at the V&A, from 2011 onwards, saw significant initiatives for the future, including the new V&A Museum of Design for Dundee, opening next year, and the V&A East in Queen Elizabeth Park, Stratford. An extension to the main V&A building on Exhibition Road brought a welcome new entrance: a dowdy side door has been replaced by a magnificent 19th century archway through to a dazzling once-hidden courtyard, redesigned by Amanda Levete. And the museum was awarded Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 for its “exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement across the previous 12 months.”

Roth resigned in September last year, citing the result of the Brexit referendum as one of the motivating factors for his decision. “Europe always gave hope for a peaceful future, based on sharing, solidarity and tolerance”, he said. “Dropping out always means creating cultural barriers – and that worries me.” Last month he took up a new role as president for the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Institute for International Relations), based in Stuttgart, which promotes cultural exchange worldwide.

The artist Edmund de Waal, who is a trustee of the V&A, says: “I saw Martin a few weeks ago in his beautiful garden in Berlin and, though very ill, he was as expansive and interested as ever, asking about the textures of the new Exhibition Road Quarter and discussing the Venice Biennale. He was a true and loyal friend, terrifying behind the wheel of one his cars, funny and exacting in his expectations, passionate in his internationalism. Martin’s early death robs us all.”

Martin Roth, museum director: born 16 January 1955; died 6 August 2017

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in