1. Rosemary Julia Barrow was a Welsh art historian who specialised in classical themes in Victorian art and the painting of Lawrence Alma-Tadema in particular, whose reputation she attempted to restore.
13 Facts About Rosemary Barrow
1. 2.
Rosemary Barrow was born on 9 April 1968 in Skewen, south Wales, to Graham Barrow, a medical practitioner, and Jean Barrow, a housewife.
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Rosemary Barrow's father died when Rosemary was 18 months old and her mother remarried, to Antony Lewis who brought Rosemary up as his own child.
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Rosemary Barrow first lectured at the University of Bristol, where she was a Faculty of Arts Junior Research Fellow, and at King's College, London, where she was a lecturer in the School of Humanities, before becoming Reader in Classical Art and Reception at the University of Roehampton.
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Rosemary Barrow made her academic reputation with her insights into classical themes in Victorian art, beginning with her involvement in the exhibition of the work of the Dutch-born painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
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Rosemary Barrow drew her ideas together in her book simply titled Lawrence Alma-Tadema in which she sought to rehabilitate Alma-Tadema's reputation which had been neglected for most of the twentieth century by arguing that he frequently used literary and archaeological allusions in his work to make subversive comments about apparently innocent subjects.
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In 2010, Rosemary Barrow contributed an essay on classicizing themes in the toga plays and tableaux vivants of London's late-Victorian and Edwardian popular stage shows to the Theatre Journal.
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Rosemary Barrow completed the first draft manuscript in the last months of her life, and it was published posthumously by Cambridge University Press.
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Rosemary Barrow was a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the Classical Association, the College Art Association, the Hellenic Society, and the Classical Studies Reception Network.
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Rosemary Barrow married her husband Mark Betz, a lecturer in film studies, in 2004 after they met at King's College.
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Rosemary Barrow later met and formed a relationship with Ryan Cooper, who was 20 years younger than Barrow and had earlier been her student at Roehampton.
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Rosemary Barrow was known for her individual sense of style which The Times attributed to her punk rock-influenced teenage years and which was evident in the videos she prepared for her students, some of which can be seen on the 'Athena Roehampton' YouTube channel.
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Rosemary Barrow was diagnosed with lung cancer on her 47th birthday, when she decided to give up smoking.