Stephen D. Martin

Martin's Coat of Arms, granted by Royal Charter

Professor Stephen D. Martin is a doctor and art historian. He has been described as "a polymath" and "a real polyglot." Martin is one of very few people to have held professorships in different subjects within both art and science.

Medical career

Stephen Martin graduated in medicine from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1987, whom he represented on University Challenge. He was the first in his year to become a Consultant. He directed NHS research under Dr Kevin Lewis’ management at St Lukes Hospital, Middlesbrough from 1995, as Visiting Fellow at the University of Teesside. He also trained as a Police Surgeon. In a three-year tenure as Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Durham, he was the European lead on the largest study of suicide ever done at the time.

He was made Visiting Professor in the University of Sunderland School of Sciences at age 34, becoming the UK’s youngest medical professor. Martin was consultant psychiatrist, head of research at Cherry Knowle Hospital, Sunderland under Dr Hedley Board’s directorship. Martin won the Hospital Doctor Award “Psychiatrist of the Year” for UK-wide NHS psychiatry. He worked on functional brain scanning across the fields of medical biology, chemistry and physics, and taught students from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. His work showed brain scan function changes with psychotherapy for depression for the first time. Later, it was much replicated. His papers have over 3776 citations. He has a lifelong, severe spinal disability, which drove an interest in helping disabled patients.

Voluntary teaching in Asia

Martin retired from clinical psychiatry, pursuing research in art history and voluntary teaching in South East Asia. From 2006 to date, he has been Honorary Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Chiang Mai Medical School, Thailand. He served as Sabbatical Professor in the University of Mahasarakham, Faculty of Arts, in 2016.  

Research and writing in humanities

In art history, Martin won a George Henderson Scholarship for non-historian undergraduates, working on Copper Plate Engravings of Hospitals and Medical Schools in the Long Eighteenth Century, supervised by Professor Norman McCord, in 1982. He researches and writes original papers on art history, particularly long eighteenth-century portraits and the Europe-Asia interface. In 2018, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, working on original academic papers about portraits and Asia. A lifelong collector, he is donor, co-founder and adviser to the award-winning Baan Dong Bang Museum and Education Centre,helping an underprivileged area of South East Asia. It has galleries of historic paintings, furniture, glass and ceramics, with a library, set in labelled, tropical botanical gardens. He contributes to the free public lecture programme in Thai and English. He also speaks fluent French and German. Martin has published over 30 academic papers on art history, mainly on old master portraits, their origins,symbols and psychology. He brings scientific techniques into art history research, including forensic analysis, statistical probability, and technical investigation. He became a licentiate flautist (LTCL) in 2016, playing solo recitals in Britain, Germany and Thailand, besides solo broadcasts on BBC and ITV. He plays the flute in lectures to illustrate links between Mozart, The Dutch East India Company and eighteenth-century portraiture.

Coat of Arms

Martin's Coat of Arms, granted by Royal Charter, is Azure, a chevronrompu or masoned sable, between two roses argent barbed vert in chief, and a martlet argent. It represents Yorkshire, and a north-country church bellcote gable, with a martlet for Martin. The crest is a dexter hand holding an open fetterlock, symbolising tolerant leniency.

Selected publications - Psychiatry

Martin, S D. Psychiatric training in police surgeon work. Psychiatric Bulletin, 1996, 20, 3, 182.

Stephen D. Martin et al. Brain Blood Flow Changes in Depressed Patients Treated with Interpersonal Psychotherapy or Venlafaxine Hydrochloride. Preliminary Findings. Archives of General Psychiatry. July, 2001; 58 (7): 641-648.

Meltzer H, … Martin S et al. Clozapine treatment for suicidality in schizophrenia: International Suicide Prevention Trial (InterSePT). Archives of General Psychiatry. 2003. Jan; 60 (1): 82-91.

Martin was world lead recruiter, project design co-author, European principal investigator. He declined fees and put them into other research.

Bourgeois M, … Martin S, et al. Awareness of disorder and suicide risk in the treatment of schizophrenia: results of the international suicide prevention trial. American Journal of Psychiatry. 2004 Aug; 161 (8): 1494-6.

Selected publications - Art

Stephen Martin. Aidan Jones. Anatomy and psychology in George Stubbs’ portrait of Joseph Banks. Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities. Fall 2023.

Martin, Stephen. Was the VOC Funding Mozart? The Diaries of Wilhelm Buschman on Kharg Island. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 33, no. 2 (2023): 489–511. doi:10.1017/S135618632200030X. A forensic investigation of how stolen pearls paid for portraits and the Mozart flute concertos.

Martin SD. Ophthalmology in Regency era China: a portrait of Thomas Richardson Colledge by George Chinnery. Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities. Spring, 2020.

Martin SD. The symbolic portrait of Mozart’s medical patron, Dr Ferdinand Dejean. Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities. Spring, 2018.

Martin S. Proto-impressionism and the forgotten lives of Regency women. Foundation. X, 1, 2018, 179-209. ISSN 1752-0398.