Biography
Carol Hogben (b. Barnard Castle, Co. Durham 1925 - d. 2018) attended St Paul’s School, London. In 1942 he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, to study classics, but this was interrupted by the war and service in the Royal Navy, and on his return he read English. After a brief spell as a personal assistant to the opera company director Bridget D'Oyly Carte, Hogben joined the V&A in 1950 as an assistant keeper in the Department of Circulation, being made Deputy Keeper in 1960, and Acting Keeper in 1975. On the closure of the Circulation Department in 1977, Hogben joined the National Art Library, sat on the V&A’s contemporary art archives and 20th-century steering committees, and acted as the V&A’s liaison officer with the Design Council. He retired from the museum in 1986. In the meantime he also was a Contemporary Art Society Committee Member (1971-5, 1976-85) and its elected buyer for craft in 1973, 1980 and 1984 acquiring 80 works for public museums in the UK.
