Curating the ‘Anti-Museum’: Women and the Occult Publics of Abstraction, 1910-1945
Supervisor: Dr Robin Schuldenfrei
Advisor: Dr Gavin Parkinson
Funded by the Tavolozza Foundation
Rachel Denniston is an art historian, writer, and curator with a special interest in how alternative spiritualities shape the interstices of art, architecture, and design in the modern period across Europe and the United States. Her work explores how art and space function more broadly to inform new ways of living, being, and finding meaning in modern life.
Her doctoral research at the Courtauld Institute of Art examines the influence of theosophy on the emergence of avant-garde abstraction, and the dissemination of modern art across borders from Europe to the United States, focusing on the efforts of three German-American, female collectors and curators Katherine Dreier, Galka Scheyer, and Hilla Rebay.
She recently held a research residency at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and has worked in a curatorial and research capacity for the Jencks Foundation, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, and Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts.
Education
PhD History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art (2023 – present)
MA History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art (2021 – 2022) – Awarded High Distinction
Dissertation: ‘Architectonics of Spirit: Galka Scheyer’s Modern Modes of Display in 1930s Los Angeles’
Grants and Awards
Scholar-in-Residence, The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024
Tavolozza Foundation PhD Scholar, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2023
Goethe Institute Grant for German Language Study, 2021
The Gerard Maurice Doyon Award in Art History
The Thomas V. Litzenberg, Jr. Prize in Museum Studies
Research Interests
European and American modernism
Utopias, theosophy, and 20th century spiritual philosophies
Exile and émigré culture
Women’s voices
Artist homes and studios