Learning Programme

Yale in London

Yale in London did not run in 2021 due to the pandemic.

Graduate Summer School

The Graduate Summer School did not run in the summer of 2020 due to the pandemic.

Public Lecture Course

In autumn 2020, the Centre ran a five-week series titled Ceramics in Britain, 1750 to Now. This was originally scheduled to run in the spring of 2020. Convened by Helen Ritchie, Curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Ceramics in Britain featured 30-minute lectures delivered by Patricia Ferguson, Catrin Jones, Florence Tyler, Simon Olding and Neil Brownsword. Topics included satire on ceramics; Josiah Wedgwood; blue and white ceramics; Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada; and the ceramic heritage of North Staffordshire.

In spring 2021, the Centre ran a six-week series that focused on the work and legacy of William Hogarth. Taking advantage of the online format, the Hogarth series incorporated filmmaking to allow the audience to enjoy close-up views of the artworks being discussed. The series was convened by Mark Hallett and featured 30-minute lectures delivered by Hallett, Meredith Gamer and Elizabeth Robles. Topics included Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress, A Rake’s Progress, Industry and Idleness and the Four Stages of Cruelty. The final two lectures looked at contemporary responses to the works of Hogarth by artists Lubaina Himid and Yinka Shonibare.

Plan, Prepare, Provide: Art Teachers’ Residential

In 2021, the Centre began funding the ‘Plan, Prepare, Provide: Art Teachers’ Residential’ programme. Plan, Prepare, Provide was launched in 2017 by the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, in partnership with the Association for Art History, to promote the teaching of art history in schools.

Plan, Prepare, Provide offers a unique opportunity for teachers and their schools to improve the delivery of both academic and practical art lessons. The programme encompasses an annual three-day residential; stand-alone CPD sessions for the network of alumni and applicants; and a targeted follow-on Postgraduate Certificate in ‘Developing Teachers’ Research and Practice’.

Since its inception, this unique programme has supported 120 teachers from more than 100 different schools and colleges from across the United Kingdom. The combined average weekly student reach of teachers who have engaged in Plan, Prepare, Provide is 20,500 students. It is our hope that through this programme the Centre can raise the profile of the study of art history among students.

Networks

The co-convenors of the Doctoral Researchers Network (DRN) for the academic year 2020–21 were Charlotte Joy Johnson and Evelyn WhorrallCampbell. Through an events programme that acknowledged the multidisciplinary approach many young researchers are now taking, the network expanded its membership and attracted more students from other disciplines, whose research nevertheless overlaps with British art history. The DRN saw fifty-nine new members join from institutions across the USA, UK and Europe. A higher proportion of new members were practice-led PhD and Collaborative Doctoral Award students completing their PhDs with arts institutions, which indicates the success of the network’s efforts to diversify the disciplines it serves.

The Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN) was co-convened by Maddie Boden and Shijia Yu, and held events on such topics as: persevering as an unaffiliated researcher; short-term contracts; and curating during the pandemic. The ECRN grew by forty-two members and lost only four, who said they no longer identified as early career researchers. Due to the pandemic, the ECRN and DRN continued to run their events online throughout the year covered by this report. This enabled a far greater geographical reach than would have been possible for in-person events, with attendees and speakers from North America and mainland Europe. The two networks organised a total of thirteen events over the year, with the shared aim of supporting their members to research, develop their professional and academic skills, and facilitate a space for peer-to-peer knowledge and expertise sharing. Between 2020 and 2021, the combined membership of the networks has increased by more than 100, and now totals 416 people.