Stephanie Dieckvoss

Senior Lecturer in Art History

I am a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Co-Convenor of the MA in Art and Business at the Courtauld Institute, where I joined in October 2024. Prior to this, I worked at Central Saint Martins, UAL, and Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, where I was the course director for the MA Art and Business from 2017 to 2021.

My research primarily explores contemporary art markets, focusing on emerging and alternative markets, the concept of institutions, and the intersection of art and commerce. I have a particular interest in the historical and contemporary micro-geographies of artistic production and consumption, with recent research centred around art fairs. I am passionate about archival research, including oral histories, and their relevance for art market studies.

As a Courtauld alumnus, I studied Renaissance Florentine Art during the Medici era under Prof. Patricia Rubin. I also hold an MA in Art History from the University of Hamburg, where my dissertation focused on hysteria in the oeuvre of Louise Bourgeois. Additionally, I earned an MBA (Public Services) from Warwick Business School and a PGCert in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from UAL. Currently, I am in the final stages of my PhD, which examines DIY approaches in alternative art fairs in Europe and the USA during the 1990s, supported by a TECHNE scholarship.

I have a wealth of experience in cultural management in the public and private sector, with over 15-year experience of working in commercial art galleries and art fairs in Germany, France and the US. Notably, I managed the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery and raised over £2 million for its expansion through a charity auction in partnership with Sotheby’s. I maintain my connection to current trends in the art market through journalistic endeavours as the art market correspondent for the German financial newspaper Handelsblatt. I have previously written for Apollo and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Teaching

From September 2025, on the MA in Art and Business:

  • Module: Understanding the Art Market
  • Topic Module: Revisiting the Art Fair

Research Interests

  • Contemporary Art Markets (post 1945)
  • Spaces of Art Commerce
  • Art (markets) and Globalisation
  • Emerging Art Markets and collecting strategies within them
  • Events in art markets, such as Art and Antique Fairs
  • The agency of artists in the art market

Recent and forthcoming publications

Books and book chapters

‘The Artist and the Art Fair: Hostile Worlds?’, in: Johannes Nathan (ed.), The Art Fair: The Rise of a Global Phenomenon, Leiden: Brill, 2025 as part of the series “Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets” (forthcoming)

‘The Hotel Room as Art Fair Booth, as Interior, as Exhibition’, in: Jana Scholze and Penny Sparke (eds.), The Exhibition as Interior, London: Bloomsbury, 2025. (forthcoming)

(with Tanja Klemm) ‘Ideas and Processes of Making: Art Education Worldwide – a view beyond Europe, in: Handmade Tales – Diversity Art Life. Tagungsband hrsg. v. der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, in Kooperation mit den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Gefördertes Projekt durch EU4ART. Dresden: Hochschule für Bildende Künste 2021.

‘African Art acquisitions at Tate: a case study on the influence of external parties on the collecting of African Contemporary Art’. in: Elisabetta Lazzaro, Nathalie Moureau, Adriana Turpin (eds.), Researching Arts Markets: Past, Present and Tools for the Future, London: Routledge, 2021.

(with Tanja Klemm) ‘Kunst Lernen? Kunstakademien und Kunsthochschulen heute’, Kunstforum 245, March 2017 (Learning Art. Academies and art schools today, co-author with Tanja Klemm).

Anish Kapoor: Turning the World Upside Down, exhibition catalogue, eds. by Stephanie Dieckvoss, Rosalind Furness and Melissa Larner, texts by Stephanie Dieckvoss, Darian Leader, Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Marcus du Sautoy, London: Serpentine Gallery 2010

Exhibition Catalogue, Simply British: A Private Collection of Naïve English Paintings, Winter Fine Art and Antiques Fair 2007 (Editorial and introductory essay)

 

Articles and essays

The Musée D’Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden in Marrakech: A Case Study in Collecting and Place-making, in: Journal of Visual Art Practice 19,3 (2020): 254-68.

Renaissance Art in Berlin: A Celebration of Wilhelm von Bode?, in: Renaissance Studies: Volume 10, Issue 4, pages 505-517, December 1996.

Wilhelm von Bode: Mein Leben. Burlington Magazine, 06/1998, pages: 399-400.

 

Recent Non-Academic Publications

Investir dans l’art : « Etes-vous un acheteur ou un collectionneur ? », 17 April 2024, L’Opinion. https://www.lopinion.fr/patrimoine/investir-dans-lart-etes-vous-un-acheteur-ou-un-collectionneur-la-tribune-de-stephanie-dieckvoss

Le grand échiquier des foires: frieze et Paris+/Art Fairs as Chess Games: frieze and Paris+, with Nathalie Moureau, in: Artpress 514, October 2023, pp. 60-63.

A brief history of contemporary art fairs, paper for ENCATC Scholar, April 2021. http://blogs.encatc.org/encatcscholar/?p=2853

Banksy: I was in the room when his painting shredded – and enhanced his brand, in: The Conversation, October 2018. https://theconversation.com/banksy-i-was-in-the-room-when-his-painting-shredded-and-enhanced-his-brand-104660

Monet for nothing? The misguided controversy about gallery ticket prices, in: The Conversation, April 2018. https://theconversation.com/monet-for-nothing-the-misguided-controversy-about-gallery-ticket-prices-94757

‘Response to gallery report 2015/16’, in: UK Contemporary Gallery Report 2015, ed. by Creative United and Arttactic, London 2016, p. 30-31. https://www.creativeunited.org.uk/uk-contemporary-gallery-report-2015-16/

From branding to Brexit: inside the Art Business Conference, Blog artmarketstudies, September 2016 https://www.artmarketstudies.org/from-branding-to-brexit-inside-the-art-business-conference/

Citations