Role
Subject Leader for Art History
Qualifications & background
BSc, Oregon State University, 1980;
PhD, Council for National Academic Awards, London, 1990;
Tribal member of the Crow Creek Dakota Sioux Nation.
Professional membership
Member of the Association of Art Historians, from 1993.
Member of the British Association for American Studies.
Member of the British Association for Canadian Studies.
Roles on external bodies
1998-2000 Acted as Specialist Subject Assessor for HEFCE/QAA exercise.
2007- 08 Executive member of advisory committee of the Native Studies Research Network-UK;
2009 - 11 Joint-convener for the International conference of the Native Studies Research Network-UK, to be held at the University of Kent, Canterbury, 2011.
Teaching interests
Italian Renaissance art and culture;
Italian modern art from the mid-nineteenth to the twentieth centuries;
American art in the nineteenth century;
Art and exploration;
European art between the Wars;
Methods and debates in Art History;
Museums' representations of non-European cultures;
Primitivism in art and culture;
and Art and questions of identity.
Staff serving as external examiners
1999- 2003 - External Examiner for Birkbeck College, History of Art dept. (Modern courses)
From Sept. 2004 - 2008 - External Examiner for University College Northampton, History of Art and Fine art dept.
Currently External Examiner for Birkbeck College, University of London, Cert HE in 'World Arts' course
Research interests
I have research interests in the visual representation of First Nations/Native Americans, including issues surrounding museums' representations of the world's cultures and native peoples' self-representation.
Other research interests include: aspects of Italian modernism, and the intersections between art, anthropology and archaeology.
New and upcoming projects include:
1) Full length scholarly book project on ‘The European Perception of the Native American, 1600 – 1900,’* for Oklahoma University Press (for publication in 2012/13) *working title - commissioned by Oklahoma University Press, summer 2009
2) A study of the American artist, George Catlin, his travels in the midwest in the USA in the 1830s encountering indigenous peoples living there for which I will be staging a major international exhibition to be held between 2014 - 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery, London and several venues in the USA and will contribute to a full length scholarly catalogue of the exhibition. I will be examining his exhibition and display strategies seen in the travelling exhibit he called Catlin's 'Indian Gallery' which he took with him to Britain and Europe during the 1840s and 50s. Another focus will be on the peoples represented in his Indian portraits.
3) A major national exhibition to be held at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter for which I will be a joint-curator with Sam Smiles (Professor Emeritus) on the subject of art and culture in Tudor Devon and Cornwall. The opening is planned for Autumn 2013. I will be responsible for curating exhibits to do with exploration and trade during this period.
3) My involvement in the Centre for Art and Travel at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich has led to my being asked to guest lecture in their educational programmes (October 2009) and to exploring possible contributions I can make to their 'Hidden Histories' exhibition projects.
UoP Research group membership
Art History
Centre for Humanities, Music and Performing Arts Research (HuMPA)
Transatlantic Exchanges Forum
Other research
I was co-curator for the 2007 exhibition 'Between Worlds: Voyagers to Britain, 1700 - 1860' held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from March 8 - June 17, 2007. This exhibition focussed on distinguished/remarkable visitors to London from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries who came from Africa, North America, the Pacific and the Indian subcontinent to the centre of Britain's growing empire.
Another exhibition to which I contributed was held at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter entitled 'Crowfoot and the Crown: the signing of Treaty Seven', September 2004 - April 2005. This re-display of the permanent collection featured the sacred shirt of the Blackfoot leader, Crowfoot and other items associated with him.
Research degrees awarded to supervised students
2001 MPhil Mariangela Williams, 'The Sense of Italianità: National Consciousness and Visual Culture in Italy, 1909-1919: A New Reading' (Director of Studies)
2006 PhD Alice Strickland 'Three Officially Commissioned War Artists of the Second World War: Ethel Gabain, Evelyn Gibbs and Evelyn Dunbar' (Second Supervisor)
2006 PhD Clive Easter 'Church Monuments of Devon and Cornwall, c.1660-c.1730' (Second Supervisor)
2009 PhD Lucy Howarth 'Marlow Moss' (Second Supervisor)
2009 PhD Jan McCann 'Walter de Maria, the Lightning Field' (Second Supervisor)
Grants & contracts
(2005) My book 'American Indians in British Art, 1700 - 1840' received a publications grant from the Paul Mellon Centre in London to fund production of high quality illustrations in the book.
(2006-2007) I was awarded a British Academy small research grant for travel and research conducted in the summers of 2006 and 2007 under the title 'Negotiating Two Worlds: Images of visiting Native American dignitaries to London, Washington, D.C. and Ottawa.'
(2009-2010) I was awarded another British Academy small research grant for travel and research at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. and the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma in the USA concerning my new research project 'Strategies for representing American Indians in George Catlin's (1796 - 1870) Indian Gallery,' which will be the basis for my contributing essays in the catalogue for the upcoming exhibition on George Catlin's paintings of American Indians scheduled at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2013.
Research studentships -
(2007 - 2011) I was awarded one of the first AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards for a studentship in the Faculty of Arts. The student selected, Ms Sally Ayres, is examining the history of the ethnographic collections at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter, with particular reference to Richard E. Dennett's collections of Congolese art and material culture undertaken in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
Conferences organised
1998 Co-convener for the annual Association of Art Historians conference, April, 1998 at the Chalk Centre, Exeter University.
2006 Travel Identities symposium organised in collaboration with the Centre for Art and Travel, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
2008 Co-organiser of 'Adoption, Captivity and Slavery: Changing meanings in early colonial America' interdisciplinary conference, held 17-18 February at the British Museum, London.
