Lucy Whelan
I am an art historian of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My research focuses on art in France, and addresses questions around artistic self-fashioning, subjectivity, gender, and the environment.
My first book, Pierre Bonnard Beyond Vision, was published with Yale University Press in 2022. This revisionist study of the painter Pierre Bonnard examined strategies for deconstructing the presumed authority of the gaze of the artist in figurative art, through exploring questions of embodiment, gender, pictorial time, artistic processes, and the depiction of landscape.
I have also published essays in edited books and exhibition catalogues, and articles in journals including The Burlington Magazine and French History. I am currently working on new projects that take ecological and feminist approaches to French art from c.1890-1970, including on the sculptor Germaine Richier.
My teaching focuses primarily on art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, visual theory and approaches, gender, and ecocritical and environmental approaches to art history.
I have previously served for three years on the management committee for the Heong Art Gallery in Cambridge.
Academic positions
2024 Research Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), funded by a DAAD Research Stay
2023-24 Associate Lecturer, Courtauld Institute of Art (Semester 2)
2023–24 Associate Lecturer, University of York (Semester 1)
2020–23 Graham Robertson Research Fellow, Downing College, University of Cambridge
2022–23 Director of Studies in History of Art, Newnham College, Downing College, and Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge
2019–20 Honorary Fellow, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University
2017–19 Hanseatic Scholar (A. Toepfer Foundation), Institute for Art and Visual History, Humboldt University of Berlin
Education
DPhil in History of Art, 2018, Department of History of Art, University of Oxford
MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture, 2011, Department of History of Art, University of Oxford
BA (Hons) in Philosophy, 2010, University of Cambridge
Publications
Book
Pierre Bonnard Beyond Vision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022.
More about my book here.
Book chapters
‘On Taking Artists at their Word: Artists’ Writings and Statements from 1850 to the Present’. In Where Words and Images Meet: 1670–2020, ed. Florence Grant and Ludmilla Jordanova. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. In press.
‘Painting the Present after Impressionism: Pierre Bonnard and Time’s Continuous Duration.’ In Time on a Human Scale: Experiencing the Present in Europe, 1860–1930, edited by Allegra Fryxell and Julian Wright. Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Peer-reviewed journal articles
‘Review Article: Three Women Artists in Postwar Paris: Anna-Eva Bergman, Germaine Richier, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.’ French History 37, no. 3 (September 2023): 317–26.
‘Pierre Bonnard’s Books: An Interpretation.’ Source: Notes in the History of Art 40, no. 4 (Summer 2021): 261–68.
‘Pierre Bonnard’s Books: A Catalogue with an Introduction.’ Source: Notes in the History of Art 40, no. 3 (Spring 2021): 186–97.
‘New Light on Pierre Bonnard’s Wife and Model Marthe.’ The Burlington Magazine 162, no. 1406 (May 2020): 412–19.
Exhibition catalogue essays
‘Balthus: Under the Surface’. In Balthus: Under the Surface. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2023. Commissioned by the Luxembourg & Co. Gallery, London.
‘Dream States, Madness, and Poetry in Bonnard’s Contre-Jour Nudes’. In Bonnard and the Nordic Countries, ed. Linda Hinners (Nationalmuseum Sweden, forthcoming, 2024). Commissioned by National Museum, Stockholm.
Book reviews
‘Nancy Ireson, ed., Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel (review)’. H-France Review 23, no. 102 (June 2023).
‘Review of Out of Breath: Vulnerability of Air in Contemporary Art, by Caterina Albano’. caa.reviews (September 2, 2022).
‘Cézanne’s Gravity by Carol Armstrong (review).’ Modernism/modernity 28, no. 1 (January 2021): 204–8.
Teaching
Undergraduate modules I have fully designed and led including assessment
'Art and Politics: Global Conceptualisms', a new optional module for level 2 and 3 students, University of York (2023-24)
'Journeys, Histories, Methods of Display', an optional module for level 2 and 3 students, University of York (2023-24) (not entirely new, but a version of an existing module which I redesigned)
'Gender and Modernism, c. 1860–1960', a new special subject course for second- and third-year students, University of Cambridge (2022-23)
Postgraduate modules I have fully designed and led including assessment
'Art and Ecology', within a new MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture at the Institute for Continuing Education, Cambridge (2021-24), as Co-Course Director and Module Director
Project supervising
Final-year dissertation supervisor, University of York (2023-24)
Dissertation supervisor for twelve undergraduate dissertations, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge (2021-23)
Supervisor for 'Objects Portfolio', Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge (2021-23)
Teaching as part of other modules
Seminar leader for the BA module 'Learning from Paris: War, Internationalism, Postmodernism', Courtauld Institute of Art (2024)
Lectures on 'Impressionist Objects', 'Impressionist Technique', 'Abstraction', 'Gender: Feminism and Masculinity', all University of Cambridge (2021-23)
Undergraduate seminars on 'The Gaze and Psychoanalysis', 'Toulouse-Lautrec and the Nabis'; graduate seminar on 'Art as a Form of Thought' (University of Oxford, 2014–15).
Small-group supervisor for three modules: 'Making Modernity: Art and Ideas, 1880–1925' (University of Oxford, 2014–15); 'Art Against the World: Visual Art after 1960' (University of Cambridge, 2016); 'Display of Art: From the Wunderkammer to the Public Museum', (University of Cambridge, 2020)
Supporting academic progress
Director of Studies in History of Art, University of Cambridge (2022-23)
Assessment
In addition to the modules I have fully designed and led, as listed above, I have assessed undergraduate examinations, and postgraduate and undergraduate dissertations, for the Department of History of Art, Cambridge
As a leader for my module 'Gender and Modernism' I was an examiner, History of Art Department, Cambridge, 2023
Qualifications
Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (qualified 2015)
Academic service
Commitees and trusteeships
Committee member, Downing College, Cambridge, 2021-23 (member of General Purposes Committee, Heong Gallery Management Committee, and subgroups for evaluating Institutional Culture, Educational Attainment, Student Experience)
Charity Trustee of Downing College, Cambridge, 2020-23
Peer review
For: Bloomsbury Visual Arts; Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide (international journal); International Fellowship programme, Herzog August Library; French History (Oxford University Press journal).
Admissions and access
Admissions interviewer for Downing College, Cambridge, 2020-23
Interviewer, Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture, Cambridge University, 2021
Widening access activities (various), Downing College and History of Art Department, Cambridge, 2021
Session leader, Brasenose College widening access scheme, University of Oxford, 2014 and 2014
Convening
Centre for Culture and Ecology Reading Group, University of Durham, 2019-2020
Visual Research Workshop for postgraduates and early career researchers, University of Oxford, 2014-15
Professional services appointment
Research Impact Officer at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, 2012-13
To get in touch via email: lww23 [the usual sign] cam.ac.uk
Twitter: @LucyWhelan
Other pages and profiles: Google scholar, Courtauld Institute of Art profile page