Re-opening the Workshop: Medieval to Early Modern

First Lecture on 31 January 2018

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.

Co-organisers: Joanne Anderson and Eckart Marchand

Lecture Series supported by the University of London Coffin Trust Fund

For details on individual lectures visit: SAS events page

Programme

Inside Pygmalion’s workshop: Ivory carving in Gothic Paris

31 January 17:30-19:30

Venue: Warburg Institute,

Description

Speaker: Sarah Guerin, University of Pennsylvania

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

7 February 17:30-19:30

Venue: Warburg Institute

Description

Speaker: Manuel Arias, Museo Nacional da Escultura, Valladolid

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

21 February 17:30-19:30

Venue: Warburg Institute

Description

Speaker: Tessa Murdoch, Victoria and Albert Museum

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

21 March 17:30-19:30

Venue: Warburg Institute

Description

Speaker: Andy Murray, Open University

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