Professor Emerita, Art History
Fields of Interest
Education
Biography
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
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Selected Research
- Susan Casteras. "The Pre-Raphaelization of the Modern Literary Heroine," in Margaret Hanni et al., Breaking New Ground in Art History (Washington, D.C.: New Academic Press, 2014), pp. 53-74.
- Susan Casteras. "From Thackeray to Stowe: British Constructions of Slavery during the American Civil War," in Christine DeVine, Nineteenth-Century British Travelers in the New World. (London: Ashgate Press, 2013) pp. 221 - 250.
- Susan Casteras. "Aesthetes on Display: 'Not Masculine and Progressive but Reclusive and Retrospective,'" in Lee Glazer and Linda Merrill, Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Pre ss, 2013), pp. 107 - 121.
- Susan Casteras. "Joseph Noel Paton's 'Bond and Free: Five Studies Illustrative of Slavery,'" in Julie Codell, ed. Visual Resources. 2011, pp. 48 - 62.
- Susan Casteras. "Women and Children Last in Victorian Emigration Paintings," in Exiles and Emigrants: Epic Journeys to Australia in the Victorian Era. (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2006), pp. 58 - 71.
- Susan Casteras. "Winged Fantasies: constructions of childhood, innocence, adolescence , and sexuality in Victorian fairy painting,"in Marilyn R. Brown, ed., Picturing Children: Constructions of Childhood between Rousseau and Freud (London: Ashgate Press, 2004), pp. 142-175.
- Susan Casteras. "The Symbolist Debt to Pre-Raphaelitism: A Pan-European Phenomenon," in Thomas Tobin, ed., World-wide Pre-Raphaelitism (New York: SUNY Press, 2004, pp.119 - 144).
- Susan Casteras. "Painted Fictions: Commemorating the Everyday in Victorian Art", in Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2003), pp. 204 - 228.
- Susan Casteras. The Defining Moment: Victorian Narrative Painting. (Charlotte, N.C. and New York: Mint Museum of Art, 2000). pp. 126-148.
- Susan Casteras. "Post-Raphaelite Visions: A Strangely Disordered Gaze," in Margaretta Watson, ed., Collecting the Pre-Raphaelites: The Anglo-American Enchantment.(London: Scolar Press, 1998), pp.139-149.
- Susan Casteras. "The Unsettled Hearth: The Problematics of Women and Victorian Interiors," in Ellen Harding, ed., Re-Framing the Pre-Raphaelites: Historical and Theoretical Essays. (London: Scolar Press, 1997), 149-172.
- Susan Casteras and Coleen Denney, authors and eds. The Grosvenor Gallery: A Palace of Art in Victorian England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996).
- Susan Casteras and Alicia Craig Faxon, eds. English Pre-Raphaelitism and its European Context (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1995).
- Susan Casteras. "Seeing the Unseen: Faces in the Victorian Crowd" in Carol Christ and John O. Jordan, eds., The Victorian Visual Imagination (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1995).
- Susan Casteras and Linda H. Peterson. A Struggle for Fame: Victorian Women Artists and Authors (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1994).
- Susan Casteras. James Smetham: Artist, Author, Pre-Raphaelite Associate (London: Scolar Press, 1994) .
- Susan Casteras. "Against the Norms: Pre-Raphaelite Challenges to Victorian Canons of Beauty," Huntington Library Quarterly (1992), pp. 13-35.
- "Stereotyping Creativity: The Cult of Male Genius in Victorian Art," in Linda Shires, ed., Rewriting the Victorians: Theory, History, and the Politics of Gender (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 116-46.
- Susan Casteras. Pocket Cathedrals: Pre-Raphaelite Book Illustration (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1991).
- Susan Casteras. English Pre-Raphaelitism and its Reception in America in the 19th Century. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1990.
- Susan Casteras and Ronald Parkinson. Richard Redgrave (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988).
- Susan Casteras. Images of Victorian Womanhood in English Art (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1987).
Research Advised
- Anna Wager. "Kindred Spirits: Communal Making and Religious Revival in Arts and Crafts Movements, 1870-1920." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2018.
- Katherine Anderson Tuft. "A Sign in the Pattern: The Creation of Mary Seton Watts’s Ideal Design in the Compton Mortuary Chapel (Surrey, England, 1898)." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2018.
- Jennifer R. Henneman. "Her Representation Precedes Her: Transatlantic Celebrity, Portraiture, and Visual Culture, 1865-1890." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2016.
- Amanda B. Waterman. “Neo-Pre-Raphaelitism: The Final Generations.” PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2016.
- Lauren Palmor. “Shadows and Light: Seeing Senescence in British and American Genre Painting, ca. 1850-1910.” PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2016.
- Kimberly Hereford. "Sleep, Sickness, and Spirituality: Altered States and Victorian Visions of Femininity in British and American Art, 1850-1915." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2015.
- Barbara Johns. "Knowing Your Place: Issei Artists in Seattle / Kenjiro Nomura, Kamekichi Tokita, and Takuichi Fujii." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2014.
- Alexandra McLafferty. "The American National Plot Visualized: The Reinterpretation of Indian Captivity Narratives at the End of the Nineteenth Century." MA Thesis, University of Washington, 2013.
- Dana Garvey. "Edwin Lord Weeks: An American Artist in North Africa and South Asia." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2013.
- John Edward Impert. "Hidden in Plain Sight: Northwest Impressionism, 1910-1935." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2012.
- Melanie Enderle. "The True, New, Newer, Not-So-New, and Blue Woman Onstage in American Painting, 1880-1940." PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 2012.
- Amanda B. Waterman. "Frank Cadogan Cowper : the last Pre-Raphaelite." MA Thesis, University of Washington, 2008.
- Darlene Martin. “An Alternate Aestheticism: Japonisme and Popular Imagery in Britain and America, 1860-1910.” PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, in progress.
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