The following  biographies  - one brief, one fuller -  are up-to-date and accurate, superseding any others you may have found elsewhere or on other web-sites.  For publicity purposes clients are invited to use either full or short version.  If you need to customise either version for publicity purposes then please submit revised/edited copy to LT Ltd for approval prior to publication.

Lars Tharp,  May 2008

LARS  THARP  -  Biography

[Short version; fuller version follows]

Lars is a historian and communicates through ‘Things’.  Trained as an archaeologist he previously served as a director and auctioneer at Sothebys where he specialised in and ran his own departments for European Ceramics, Chinese Ceramics and Oriental Works of Art.  While there he was invited to join the Antiques Roadshow (from 1985) and has appeared on all its subsequent series. As his broadcasting career developed he set up his own consultancy (“Lars Tharp Ltd”) devising and organizing a wide range of activities:  advising museums, institutions and individuals; creating exhibitions; devising and leading cultural tours at home and abroad (particularly to the Far East and the Baltic) and speaking regularly to heritage organizations such as NADFAS, The National Trust, The Art Fund and the Royal Society of Arts.  Lars is also an author and is patron, trustee or fellow of a number of institutions and charities; he believes passionately in the use of history -whether near or distant- in our interpretation of the Present.  He is currently visiting professor at De Montfort University (Humanities) and a Liveryman of London’s oldest recorded guild, The Worshipful Company of Weavers.

LARS  THARP  -  Biography

[Fuller Version]

Lars Tharp talks about ‘Things’  - Man’s material culture - from prehistory to the present, and in particular on the evolution and infinite significance of  Clay.  By interrogating inanimate objects we can visualise past lives in ways more concrete than the mere reading of the written word: How was this created? -by whom?  -for whom, when and where?  - and how (if at all) has the world changed since?

By addressing such questions, a deceptively inert object becomes “armed”, a time grenade capable of propelling us into another world. 

Born in Copenhagen(1954), Lars was educated in England.  Inspired by his Danish grandfather (keeper of Antiquities at Copenhagen’s Nationalmuseum), he decided on a similar career, reading archaeology at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (1973-76), at a time when the eminent sinologist Joseph Needham was its Master.  After university he joined Sotheby’s (London) becoming a director and auctioneer of the company.  While there he specialized in Oriental Ceramics and was invited to join the BBC Antiques Roadshow (1985), appearing on every subsequent series to become one of its most well-known faces today.  Other TV work has ensued, from Call my Bluff  to his very own 12-part series on BBC Four Inside Antiques  [see full CV for full broadcasting career].  As his lecturing and broadcasting career grew, he eventually left full-time auction-house employ to set up his own consultancy company, today’s “Lars Tharp Ltd” (1993).

Travel – both for study and work -is an important strand in his freelance business: he guides specialist groups on cultural tours most frequently to China as well as to the Baltic countries.  At home and abroad he addresses a spectrum of diverse groups and institutions -from education to entertainment – melding the two in his own unique style [see separate List of clients].  He was recently made Visiting Professor to De Montfort University (Humanities) where, inaugurating his appointment with a public lecture, he interviewed the Turner Prize-winning artist-potter Grayson Perry (2008).

As guest curator he has devised several acclaimed exhibitions (Hogarth’s China, International Ceramics Seminar and Fair, London 1997; Celebrating Ceramics (a three-centre exhibition at York, Wakefield and Scarborough, 2005-2006)).  Three of his major fields of study are: the evolution of clay technology; the Life, Works and World of William Hogarth; and the development of the East-West China Trade (-out of which came his recent programmes for Radio Four China on a Plate –a personal journey along the four-hundred mile porcelain trail to Canton). As historian and finder of stories he acts as advisor to museums, individuals and institutions on the identification, acquisition, care, display and disposal of ceramics other works of art.

Other broadcasting:  for radio he created, scripted and chaired all series of Radio Four’s antiques quiz Hidden Treasures; he has also presented all series of For What It’s Worth –a social history of objects; Out of the Fire – a mini-series on ceramics; and with Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen he co-presented In Search of Hans Christian Andersen (2006).  His Men in Bow Ties, made for The Archive Hour (2007) traced fifty years of Antiques programmes, from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral  through Going for a Song and Lovejoy and numerous other shows right up to the most successful factual series ever made for TV, The Antiques Roadshow.  Forthcoming radio programmes include a portrait of The All-Talented Bernardo Buontalenti ( -on 16^th century  Medici porcelain) and an in-depth feature on Potted Lives: Death and the Urn (2009). Other television:  The Great Antiques Hunt (all eight series), Going, Going, Gone, The Antiques Show, The Antiques Inspectors (both series), In Search of Vilhelm Hammershøi (with Michael Palin); Castle in the Country (all eight series, ongoing, 2008).

Lars’s varied interests are reflected through his patronage and memberships of various institutions, including:  The Hogarth Group (chairman); The Hogarth Trust (trustee);  The Museum of Worcester Porcelain (trustee); The Victoria County History project (patron); the Hope Cancer Foundation (patron);  The Leicester Archaeological and Historical Society (vice-president); Leicester International Music Festival (patron); the Royal Society of Arts (fellow) and The Framework Knitters’ Museum (patron).  Weaving occasional idleness with industry, Lars is a noted William Hogarth devotee and a Liveryman of London’s oldest recorded guild, The Worshipful Company of Weavers.  Though regularly to be seen in his favourite City (of which he is a Freeman), Lars retires to the leafy shires where he lives with his wife and two daughters  - and just occasionally gets to play his ‘cello.