I was awarded my PhD at The Courtauld in 2024 for a thesis entitled ‘Collecting and Identity in Manchester and Philadelphia, c.1870-1914.’ My research was supervised by Professor David Peters Corbett at the Centre for the Art of the Americas. My project examined the ways in which collections were used as tools in the negotiation of individual identities in Britain and the United States in the late-nineteenth century. By emphasising comparative case studies, my research considered approaches to collecting that diverged in medium, scale, ideology, and context. It described a plastic and multidimensional landscape of collecting in order to contribute to a plural and polycentric history of collecting.
At The Courtauld, I teach modules on nineteenth-century British, European, and American art for undergraduate and masters students. I have participated in conferences organised by the Association for Art History, Tate Britain, and Yale University, and have lectured at the National Gallery, London.
In Autumn 2024, I will be providing sabbatical cover for Professor David Peters Corbett.
Education
- PhD: The Courtauld Institute of Art (2020-24)
- MA History of Art: The Courtauld Institute of Art (2018-19)
- BA (Hons) History: Somerville College, University of Oxford (2014-17)
Conferences, Events, and Invited Talks
- Organising Lecturer – Anatomy of an Art World: The American Scene c.1850-1950 (Showcasing Art History), organised with Dr Matthew Holman for The Courtauld (forthcoming Spring 2025)
- Guest Lecturer – ‘Monet: London, Paris, and Beyond’, Monet’s Thames Series: Painting Modernity at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Showcasing Art History), The Courtauld (forthcoming December 2024)
- Speaker – ‘William H. Dorsey’s Philadelphia Collection: Archive, Activism, Art’, Association for Art History Annual Conference, organised by the Association for Art History and the University of Bristol (2024)
- Speaker – ‘Making Meaning in Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel at the Manchester Art Museum’, The Rossettis: In Relation, organised by Tate Britain, the University of York, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2023)
- Speaker – ‘Spaces of Identity: Enriqueta Rylands and the John Rylands Library’, Global New Voices: Art, Identity, and the Body, organised by the Association for Art History’s Doctoral and Early Career Researcher Network (2022)
- Guest Lecturer – ‘Winslow Homer: An American in Paris’, Winslow Homer: North America, Europe, and the Caribbean World, The National Gallery (2022)
- Organiser – Digital Approaches to Histories of Nineteenth-Century American Art, organised by The Courtauld Centre for American Art (2022)
- Panel Chair – ‘Transmission’, American Art and the Political Imagination, organised by The Courtauld Centre for American Art (2022)
- Speaker – “Not of the Ordinary Type” – Thomas Coglan Horsfall and the Manchester Art Museum’, Radical Victorians: Race, Labor, Identity, organised by The Frick Pittsburgh, Yale University, and Carnegie Mellon University (2022)
Teaching
My teaching for the 2024-2024 academic year includes:
- ‘New York, London, Paris 1880-1940’ (MA)
- ‘Body Politics: Art, Gender, and Class in the Victorian Metropolis’ (BA3)
- ‘American Art and American Landscape, 1800-1920’ (BA2)
- ‘The Pre-Raphaelites’ (BA1)
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
- ENHANC/Research England Research Trips Award (2024)
- British Association for Victorian Studies Research Funding Award (2022)
- Association for Art History Scholarly Research Grant (2021)
- Terra Foundation Research Travel Grant (2021)
- Courtauld Scholarship (2020 – 2023)
- Alice Horsman Award, Somerville College (2018)
Research Interests
- British and American art, c.1850-1920
- Centre/periphery relations
- Materiality
- Identity and self-definition
- Collecting and collectors
- Social and public functions of art
- Digital art histories
Other Activities
- Reviews Editor – Brief Encounters Journal (2021-2022)
- Interview – Impresario Project (2021)