Biography
Ken Teague was the Museum Assistant (1975-1976) and Deputy Keeper of Anthropology for Asia (1976-2001) and Europe (1995-2001) at the Horniman Museum.
He obtained a B.Sc (Hons) in Anthropology at University College London in 1972 and a Diploma of the Museums Association in 1980. Dr Teague also obtained a PhD from the University of Hull in 1995.
Ken undertook several field collecting trips while at the Horniman, visiting Nepal, Mongolia, Cyprus, Turkey, Tibet, India, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Switzerland and Turkmenistan. Through his own collecting trips and acquisitions made on behalf of the museum he significantly increased the museum’s holdings of Nepalese artefacts, with the collection increasing from fifty in 1981 to over 500 objects in 1988. In the late nineties he turned his attention towards Central Asia and collected around 500 objects from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan that had previously been under-represented.
He curated numerous permanent and temporary exhibitions at the Horniman, such as 'Mr. Horniman and the Tea Trade’, 'Mongolia' (1979), 'Last of the Bedouin', ‘Tents’ and 'Nomads'.
After his retirement he has been employed as a Sessional Lecturer at Birkbeck University in Buddhist Art and Artefacts. Ken Teague is the author of many books and articles such as 'Metalcrafts of Central Asia' (1990) and 'Nomads. Nomadic Material Culture in the Asian Collections of the Horniman Museum' (2000).He has also served as a tutor and examiner for the Museums Association Diploma and as a member of the Ethnography advisory panel of the area museum service for South East England.
Brief biography
Deputy Keeper of Anthropology (1936-)