As a result of my nearly twenty years of curatorial experience as Curator of Paintings at the Yale Center for British Art, I like to emphasize in my classes a strong object-related approach, which lends itself whenever possible to firsthand study in museums, private collections, and/or exhibitions. My primary concentration is on British Victorian art, on which I have published extensively on diverse topics such as Pre-Raphaelitism, the iconology of womanhood, male genius, sempstresses, and the Grosvenor Gallery. I equally enjoy teaching and advising in the field of American 19th-century art and often combine an interdisciplinary, Anglo-American perspective and encourage my students in this direction. My most recent research projects include those on fairy paintings, Victorian history pictures, images of emigration, and constructions of race and labor; I moreover continue my work on the huge subject of Victorian religious painting, a much neglected subject. Among the seminars I have taught recently are those entitled Representations of the Other in 19th-Century Art; Pre-Raphaelitism; The Gilded Age in Europe an America; The Body Politic; Death and Dying in Visual Culture; Bloomsbury Art and Artists; American Impressionism and its Regional Permutations; and Art Museums: History, Theory, and Practice. I have had several talented graduate students working with me in these areas and exploring new topics. Most have already been chosen to present papers at various symposia and conferences, and some have published their work and won prestigious internships at the National Gallery of Art and elsewhere. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Areas Of Expertise And Research
American and British painting, 1750-1950
Victorian art
Pre-Raphaelitism
Women artists
Constructions of gender, race, and ethnicity
Feminist art and issues
19th-century critical reception and the art press
Northwestern art, 1880-1945
Art Museums: history, theory, practice
