The Department of History of Art is a leading centre for art historical research, recognised internationally for its intellectual leadership in particular branches of the discipline and its excellence in general.
Staff and postgraduate students in the Department of History of Art are engaged in a wide range of individual and collaborative research activity. The Department plays a key role in University research initiatives, and in developments with collaborators across a wide range of institutions, nationally and internationally. There are critical masses of activity in a number of areas (British art history and European Modernism especially) and these are complemented by research on other themes and periods.
Research themes include:
The Department offers BA courses in History of Art, History of Art with Study Abroad and History of Art with a Modern Language. The stimulating and challenging range of undergraduate units draws directly on the research interests of its members of staff. At undergraduate level our programmes focus on western art and architecture and provide a broad knowledge of developments from medieval to modern times.
At postgraduate level, we offer an innovative taught Master of Arts degree in History of Art, and higher degrees by research (MPhil, MLitt and PhD). A programme of collaborations with national and regional museums offers an exceptional opportunity to work in museum and curatorial contexts while studying for a postgraduate degree in History of Art. In addition, the Department, in partnership with Tate Britain, has recently been awarded a prestigious collaborative doctoral award for a research project focusing on the Classical Nude in Romantic Britain.
Fortnightly departmental seminars allow staff and students to share new research and get feedback. It also allows new ideas to emerge for research projects, and for conferences to be organised, such as medieval art and architecture at Bristol Cathedral, and Internationalism and Cultural Exchange.
Staff and students also participate in the Faculty of Arts Research Events including those regularly hosted by BIRTHA in which staff members from History of Art are actively involved.
History of Art staff disseminate research via public events including the University of Bristol’s prestigious Autumn Art Lectures series, the Annual Association of Art Historians Conference (Lilley Conception/Reception 2005), and the Paul Mellon lectures 2011 at the National Gallery in London, and pilot projects in Bristol’s primary schools.
The Department is actively involved with the following research clusters and themes, and centres: