University of Cambridge

Graduate Student, History of Art

Other Affiliations: School of Advanced Study, University of London, The Warburg Institute
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Art History
University of Westminster, Media Arts and Design

King's College

Thesis Title: Printing Colour in the Age of Dürer: German ‘Chiaroscuro’ Woodcuts (1487-1572)

About

My background in curation influences my engagement with art history and works of art, and my research interests include early modern printmaking, ecological issues and contemporary photography, the historiography of colour, and the history, theory and practice of the display of art. As the 2012/2013 Munby Fellow in Bibliography at the University of Cambridge, I will produce the first study of woodcuts printed in colour in Tudor books.

My PhD, supported by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, explores one of the earliest attempts at printing in colour in the West: the so-called ‘chiaroscuro’ woodcuts from Germany. The topic is rooted in research I undertook both during my MA at the Courtauld Institute under Joseph Koerner in 2005, supported by a Courtauld Scholarship, and the following year while working as a curatorial assistant in the Photographic Collection of the Warburg Institute. A National Merit Scholar, I earned a BA in Art History and Literature from the University Professors Program, Boston University, in 2003. My thesis benefitted from my work in the curatorial office and then the conservation lab of a collection of early and rare books, and I also studied literature with Saul Bellow.

My forthcoming publications include a chapter of Ludwig Senfl: Das Handbuch, a collaborative exploration of the (possibly imperial) patronage of a book illustration printed with gold in 1520, as well as reviews in Apollo Magazine and Print Quarterly. I have supervised topics including the art theory of Albrecht Dürer, artistic exchange in early modern Europe, displaying other cultures, the birth of the museum movement, and art and the Reformation at the BA level at the University of Cambridge. In December 2011, I co-convened the two-day conference 'Impressions of Colour: Rediscovering Colour in Early Modern Printmaking, ca. 1400-1700' (www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1659).

I have lectured on the display of art at the BA and MA levels at the universities of Cambridge, Warwick and Westminster, where I have been Curator/Visiting Lecturer on the MA Photographic Studies since 2007. Special topics have included the ethics of conservation, PR strategies for independent curation, defining the national museum and displaying value in twenty-first-century art. My approach to teaching the display of art and museology is shaped by my theoretical interests and practical experience, as I worked on art and design exhibitions from Miami to Moscow to Milan before returning to academia. The most recent exhibition opened in September 2011 at Ambika P3 (www.maps2011.co.uk).

In addition to my academic output, I publish on modern and contemporary art and photography in magazines including Above, for which I am the Arts Editor and contribute regularly, and Bitch. Recent articles discuss nature in Zao Wou-Ki’s paintings, an unpublished letter from David Livingstone in the collection of Peter Beard, and Judy Chicago’s eco-feminist land art, co-authored with her assistant.

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