People-backup
The Centre is an interdisciplinary forum for collaborations and conversations across the 'spaces' of the art and antiques market. The people involved in CSAAM include academics from University of Leeds, as well as academic colleagues from a wide range of external universities and research centres, together with museum professionals, archivists, and art and antiques market professionals.
The Director of the Centre for the Study of the Art and Antiques Market is Dr Mark Westgarth
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Centre Director: Dr Mark Westgarth
Mark Westgarth is Associate Professor in Art History and Museum Studies and Programme Director for the BA Art History with Museum Studies at the University of Leeds.
His research interests include the history and theory of museums and galleries, the histories of the art market, and more especially the agency and the social and cultural identity of the art and antiques dealer in the 19th and 20th centuries. His PhD thesis, also funded by the AHRC, investigated the significance of the antique and curiosity dealer in the opening decades of the 19th century. His publications include, The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain 1815-1850: the commodification of historical objects (Ashgate, 2018); A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers (Regional Furniture Society, 2009; republished 2011); ‘Florid-Looking speculators on art and virtue: the London picture trade c.1850′ in Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich (eds.), The Rise of the London Art Market 1850-1939 (MUP, 2011).
Mark is a member of the Advisory Board for the Bloomsbury Series 'Contextualisng Art Markets' and is on the Editorial Board of the Colnaghi Journal.
Dr Gail Day
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
Gail's research interests are in the theories, methodologies and historiographies of modern and contemporary art, photography and architecture. In terms of the art market Gail has particular interests in the intersections of the art market with aesthetics and politics. Her work on capitalism and on value theory, on commodity, reification, social process and abstraction with cultural and aesthetic theory analysis, bring key interdisciplinary perspectives to the research culture in the CSAAM.
Dr Will Rea
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
Will's research is focussed on the art history of West Africa and African more generally, both in terms of the classical traditions and the visual response to modernity. He works on the interface between art history and anthropology and has a keen interest in material culture. He has recently been working on the visual forms established by varied economic formulations as part of an ongoing interest in the nature of the object and material culture. He is particularly interested in the history of the African art market, and its continued development in the 21st century.
Nick Thurston
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
Nick's research focuses on the production, distribution and criticism of extra-literary forms of writing in relation to the field of contemporary art and the disciplinary formation of Fine Art. Up-to-date news about recent and current projects can be found on his website, www.nickthurston.info In early 2015, the Electronic Poetry Center (University of Buffalo and University of Pennsylvania) made the most comprehensive sample archive of his poems, short writings, interviews and book extracts (2006-2014) yet compiled digitally available for free. Nick is interested in the relationships between contemporary curatorial practices and the contemporary art market.
Professor Regina Lee Blaszczyk
School of History
Professor Blaszczyk does research on the cultural history of business, with reference to design, fashion, colour, retailing, and advertising. Her work connects the history of the creative industries to big historical themes such as globalization, material life and social identity, and consumer culture. She also writes about connections between the chemical industry and the creative sector, and about the history of technology.
Dr Eleanor Quince
School of History, University of Southampton
Professor Helen Rees Leahy
Professor of Museology, University of Manchester
Dr Barbara Lasic
Lecturer, Art History, Sotheby's Institute
Jeremy Howard
Head of the Department of Art History, University of Buckingham
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Dr Susanna Avery-Quash
Senior Research Curator (History of Collecting), The National Gallery, London
Bryony Bond
Creative Director, The Tetley, Leeds
Prior to joining the Tetley in January 2016, Bryony was Exhibitions Curator at the Whitworth, Manchester, where she co-curated major group exhibitions such as We Face Forward: Art from West Africa Today, solo exhibitions including Bedwyr Williams and Callum Innes, and collaborations with Artangel and Siobhan Davies Dance. In 2013 she was seconded to Manchester International Festival to produce a 65 hour durational performance by Nikhil Chopra. She has also advised National Museums Scotland on a strategy for working with contemporary art and previously worked at Camden Arts Centre, London and A Foundation, Liverpool.
Christopher Wilk
Keeper of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Dr Jane Whittaker
Head of Collections, The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle
James Lomax
Emeritus Curator, Temple Newsam House, Leeds
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Martin Levy
H. Blairman & Sons
Jerome Phillips
Phillips of Hitchin
Christian Jussel
Formerly, Vernay & Jussel
Jeremy Howard
Colnaghi
Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth
Tutor at V&A/RCA Programme
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The Centre is home to a growing number of PhD research students working on art market-related subjects. We currently have 6 PhD students, listed below with their respective projects. If you would like to join this growing research culture and have a potential PhD research project on the art market, please do email the Centre Director, Dr Mark Westgarth m.w.westgarth@leeds.ac.uk.
Lucy West - PGR Officer for the Centre for the Study of the Art & Antiques Market - 'A Great Commerce in Curious Paintings: the role and practices of art agents and dealers in the reception and re-evaluation of 'Old Master' paintings in Britian 1800-1850' Lucy is researching the market for so-called 'primitive' paintings in the early nineteeth century. Lucy is an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student working with the Bowes Museum/National Gallery.
Gemma Plumpton - 'Collecting Continental Old Masters at Harewood House, Yorkshire: conflicts and convergences over contemporary art and national heritage and European and American cultural relations in the British Art world 1880-1950'. Gemma is an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student working with the National Gallery and Harewood House.
Heather Findling - ‘Shaping A Postwar Identity in Vienna, Austria from 1945-1980: Private Collections and their Legacies’ – Heather is researching the cultural atmosphere of postwar Vienna, Austria and the private collectors of modern art and Judaica who began collecting in Vienna during this time. Her research aims to investigate their contribution to the city’s cultural identity, and how such collections have become celebrated and valued in Vienna’s museums today.
Colette Siddiqui - ‘The historiography of coin and medal collecting in the early 19th century: Henry Wellesley’s medals’ – Colette is researching the cultural context for coin and medal collecting and the networks and practices of collectors and dealers in the period 1790-1850, with a specific focus on the collector Henry Wellesley.
Lassla Esquivel Durand - An examination of the role of private museums in emerging markets: an intersection between the private and the public sphere. Case study: Museo Jumex (Mexico) and Inhotim (Brazil).
Zoe Varley - Transculturations & Transactions: from ‘curios’ to ‘specimens’, Colonialism, Empire and the role of the art market in the development of the collections of Henry S. Wellcome, 1880-1940. Zoe is an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student working with Wellcome Institute.
Completed PhDs -
Anna Reeve - Update, December 2021 - Congratulation to Dr Anna Reeve....the fourth of our PhDs in the CSAAM
Simon Spier - Update, October 2020 - Congratulations to Dr Simon Spier...the third of our PhDs in the CSAAM
Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth - Update September 2019 - Congratulations to Dr McCaffrey-Howarth....the second of our PhDs in the CSAAM
Shir Kochavi – Update, July 2017 – Congratulations to Dr Kochavi…the first of our PhDs in the CSAAM
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