Professor Clare Willsdon
- Professor of the History of Western Art (History of Art)
telephone: 01413306331
email: Clare.Willsdon@glasgow.ac.uk
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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9021-6291Research interests
Office Hour: Email for appointment
Research Interests
- European painting 1800-1940, with special interests in Impressionism (including its development in America), Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, the Fin-de-siècle, Vienna Secession
- mural painting
- contextual and thematic methodologies
My research on mural painting includes the first published nationwide survey and critical interpretation of 19th/20th-century mural painting in any country (Mural Painting in Britain 1840-1940), and work on European murals since 1800 including schemes at the Palace of Westminster, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Royal Exchange, Livery companies, and Bank of England, and important mural works in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Stockholm, Brussels etc. I am also a member of the international panel on new murals for the House of Lords. My research on Impressionism includes the pioneering study In the Gardens of Impressionism, and I am the Academic Advisor and catalogue author for a major exhibition in 2010-11 at the National Gallery of Scotland and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, on the evolution and influence of Impressionist garden painting. I have also made curatorial and catalogue contributions to the 'Gartenlust' ('Garden Pleasures') exhibition at the Belvedere, Vienna (2007), and the 'Renoir' exhibition at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome (2008).
Supervision
I welcome applications from students interested in undertaking postgraduate research in areas relating to my research interests. See also 'Advisory Work'
- Bailey, Lucy
Walter Fawkes 1769-1825: A Patron of the Arts
Teaching
Specialist option courses (not all are offered each year):
- 'Whistler, Impressionism and European Avant-Gardes' (MLitt)
- 'Impressionism: Innovation and Invention, 1874-1926' (MLitt)
- 'Early Impressionism, 1850-1876' (Senior Honours)
- 'Symbolism and Secession' (Junior Honours)
- '19th-Century Issues' (MLitt core course)
- 'Historiography of Art History' and 'Methodology of Art History' (Junior Honours)
- 19th Century (Level 1)
Additional Information
Administration
- Convenor, SCCA Postgraduate Committee
- Convenor, Senior Honours
- Elected Representative of College of Arts on Senate
- Glasgow School of Art Annual Programme Monitoring Board
- Glasgow University/Glasgow School of Art Joint Liaison Committee
- College of Arts Undergraduate Studies Committee and Board of Studies
External Responsibilities
- Honorary Curator, Glasgow Life
- External Examiner, Part I History of Art Tripos, University of Cambridge (2005 to date)
- Assessor for Postdoctoral Awards, Irish Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council, 2000
- Member, International Assessment Board for Postgraduate awards, Irish Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council, 2001 and 2006-8
Conference Papers
Major conference and seminar papers in the last 4 years include:
- 'The Ramsay Garden Murals' (Sir Patrick Geddes and France, Edinburgh, 2004)
- 'The Victorian Murals at the Royal Exchange' (City Merchants and the Arts, Corporation of London, 2004)
- 'Mural Painting in British Public Buildings' (Modern Traditions in Secular Wall Painting, UK Institute for Conservation/English Heritage, 2005)
- 'Besnard's murals for the Ecole de Pharmacie, Paris' (Early Third Republic seminar, University of Edinburgh, 2005)
- 'Renoir's Garden Paintings' (Renoir Symposium, National Gallery, London, 2007)
- 'Impressionism in Berlin' (Early Third Republic seminar, University of Edinburgh, 2006)
- 'Brangwyn's Murals of Industry and Labour' (Brangwyn, Leeds City Art Gallery, 2006)
- 'Renoir's Paintings of Gardens in Paris' (Renoir Study Day, National Gallery, London, 2007)
Invited lectures in the last 4 years include:
- 'Caillebotte et les jardins des impressionistes' (Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, 2005)
- 'In the Gardens of Impressionism', 'Manet and Menzel in the Impressionist Garden', and 'Renoir's Images of Parks and Gardens' (all National Gallery, London, 2004-8)
- 'In the Gardens of Impressionism' (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Wallace Collection, London; Contemporary Art Society for Wales, Cardiff, 2005-6).
Other lectures and conference papers
- Papers at Association of Art Historians annual conferences, on British mural painting (1984, 1985, 1986), and on 'National and Colonial Landscapes in Murals at the Conseil d'Etat, Bourse de Commerce and Gare de Lyon in Paris, 1880-1926' (2001)
- 'Baudelaire's 'Le Voyage' and the Middle-Eastern Photography of Maxime Du Camp', Romantic Geographies international conference, University of Glasgow, 1994
- 'Picturing London: the Murals at the Royal Exchange', Gresham College Quatercentenary lecture, 1997
- 'Brangwyn's British Empire Murals for the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords', Rethinking Englishness: the Englishness of English Art conference, University of York, 1997
- 'Klimt and the Vienna Secession', lecture to Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, Glasgow, 1999
- 'Reform and Revival: the East Corridor Murals at the Palace of Westminster, 1906-10', plus related seminar at Palace of Westminster, Comité international d'histoire de l'art Time Congress, London 2000
- 'Mural Painting in Scotland 1840-1940 within its European Context', research seminar paper at Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 2000
- 'Public and Social Image and Identity: Victorian Mural Painting', Locating the Victorians international conference, Science Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2001
- '"Promenades et Plantations": Impressionism, Conservation, and Haussmann's Reinvention of Paris', Soil and Stone: Impressionism, Urbanism, Environment international conference, University of Edinburgh, 2001
- 'Parisian Murals', Parisian Cultural Topographies conference, University of Glasgow, 2003
- Lectures on Impressionist garden painting to local interest groups including Friends of Stirling Art Gallery and of Glasgow Museums and Art Gallery, 2005-8
Awards
- Mary Ann Leighton Senior Scholarship; Raemakers' Prize (Girton College, Cambridge, 1980)
- University of Cambridge Research Maintenance Award (1981-83)
- Historians of British Art 2002-3 international prize for Mural Painting in Britain 1840-1940: Image and Meaning, Oxford University Press, 2000 ('the best book published on British art, architecture and culture' in the single-author, post 1800 category, with reference to 'the significance and originality of the subject as well as methodological approach, breadth and depth of research and sources, quality of writing, and, of course, quality of production')
Nominations for national awards
- for Sir Banister Fletcher 'Best Book in the Arts in Britain' award, 2005-6 (In the Gardens of Impressionism, Thames & Hudson, 2004)
- for National Library of Scotland/Saltire Society 'Research Book of the Year' award 2005 (In the Gardens of Impressionism, Thames & Hudson, 2004)
Advisory work
- member of international seminar panel established 2008 by the House of Lords Works of Art Committee in connection with the first mural commission for the Houses of Parliament since 1925
- advisor to Centre international d'art mural, Saint-Savin, France, on E.U. 'Raphael' research project on external murals, 2000
- periodic advisor on murals and their conservation in churches, private care, and abroad; and to national and private organisations including Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments, English Heritage, Mercers' and Skinners' Companies, Trustees of the Madresfield Estate, Survey of London
- consulted by the Kunsthaus, Zürich, on Monet for its 'Monets Garten' exhibition, 2005, and by private individuals in Britain, USA, Australia, Belgium, South Africa, etc on murals and preliminary designs for murals; paintings of the Celtic Renaissance; the provenance and identification of Impressionist paintings; art-historical archives of the period 1800 to date, etc.
- I have given advice to centres including Shizuoka Prefectural Museum, Japan and to national and local organisations and private individuals on the life and work of Sir Frank Brangwyn.
Broadcasts
- Periodic contributor to BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Scotland, and STV programmes/reports on the arts.
