Re-opening the Workshop: Medieval to Early Modern

Workshop and workshop practices represent a core and dynamic research strand in the history of art. This strand encompasses the study of canonical artists but equally of the anonymous producers whose activities can be deduced from the surviving art objects, thanks to ever developing research questions and methodologies. This topic helps us to think about the agents and their networks (artists, patrons and other market consumers), objects and socio-economic factors (making, buying and trading) as well as the broader cultural issues of the transmission of skills and ideas (the movement of artists, objects and imagery). Our lecture series brings together leading experts in medieval and early modern historical periods in and beyond Europe, particular highpoints for the study of workshop practices, and also those researching workshop continuities and changes in later centuries, including digital mediation.

The aim of our lecture series on the artistic workshop is to speak to an interdisciplinary audience who are interested in thinking about issues such as agency and the commission, production and the use of art works and objects in the widest possible sense as well as those attuned to the theoretical implications these issues have for visual and material culture of all ages/periods. The lecture series will be free and open to a wide public. It will also constitute an important element for our students on postgraduate programmes.

Co-organisers: Joanne Anderson and Eckart Marchand

Lecture Series supported by the University of London Coffin Trust Fund

31 January 2018 - Sarah Guérin (University of Pennsylvania)
Inside Pygmalion’s workshop: Ivory carving in Gothic Paris

7 February 2018 - Manuel Arias (Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid)
Alonso Berruguete, "the son of Laocoon", and his assimilation of classical sources

21 February 2018 - Tessa Murdoch (V&A)
Master and Apprentice: Transferring skills in the London Huguenot communities

28 February 2018 - Joris van Gastel (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome)
The Workshop of Bernini (Re)visited

7 March 2018 - Michelle O’ Malley (Warburg Institute)
Botticelli, his assistants and the business of the workshop

21 March 2018 - Andy Murray (Open University)
The Socialisation and Specialisation of Workshop Labour at the Charterhouse of Champmol

9 May - Adam Lowe (Factum Arte, Madrid)
Mediation and Transformation | Alchemy and New Technology: Factum Arte’s workshop practice in an age of 3D recording and printing

16 May - Glyn Davis (Museum of London) Goldsmiths,
Ivory Carvers, Embroiderers: Identity in the Medieval Workshop

27 June - Therese Martin (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid)
Re-opening the Treasury: Meaning in Materials at San Isidoro de León