AAH

Art History in the Pub at the Camden Crawl

The AAH is proud to be able to announce that a day's worth of art history  lectures will be forming part of the Camden Crawl Festival, on May Bank Holiday Weekend.

New AAH Publication - Don't Ask for the Mona Lisa

Guidelines for academics on how to propose, prepare, and organise an exhibition
By Heather Birchall, Amelia Yeates. Now available for purchase in hardcopy or PDF formats.

AAH and AICA Present: Linda Karshan in conversation with Alyce Mahon

Lights Points: A Conversation
23 February 2012, 6-8pm,
Redfern Gallery, London

Event - Public Speaking Workshop for Art Historians

 ‘Public Speaking Workshop for Art Historians’
9th February 2012, 10-5pm
Association of Art Historians, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ

Teaching within Collections: Opportunities for Collaboration between Universities and Art Galleries / Museums

AAH Museums and Exhibitions Seminar, 1st March 2012, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne

Draft Organisational Aims 2012-2016

This year, we were able to establish a new mission statement together. It was unanimously agreed at the last AGM and reads:

The AAH promotes the professional practice and public understanding of art history.

This statement gives our organisation focus in the work we do and lets new and prospective members know what we are about.

Over the last nine months, we have worked on further defining what we want to accomplish by setting out joint aims.

Voluntary Work Fund - Recipient's Report

Department of Illuminated Manuscripts, The British Library
12.07.2011- 02.08.2011
Charlotte Stovell

Art History in the Pub - Housing Estate Signage in Post-War Britain

As part of the AAH's commitment to bringing the best in cutting-edge art-historical research to a wider community, we are pleased to be able to announce a hopefully-regular "Art History in the Pub" series of talks, lectures and events.

Special Offer for AAH Members - 10% off at the British Institute of Florence

The British Institute of Florence has been located in the heart of Florence’s historical city centre since 1917. The Institute has two city centre sites, incorporating a language school and the stunning Harold Acton Library on the banks of the Arno, where Art History courses take place.

Art History in the Pub - Dr Hannah Williams (Oxford) on The Violent Suicide of François Lemoyne: An 18th-Century Art History Mystery

As part of the AAH's commitment to bringing the best in cutting-edge art-historical research to a wider community, we are pleased to be able to announce a hopefully-regular "Art History in the Pub" series of talks, lectures and events.

Our talks present a selection of the wide vareity of topics, periods, methods and apporaches common in art historical study, and are aimed at a generalist audience.

AHitP is held at:

The Monarch
40-42 Chalk Farm Road
Greater London NW1 8BG
Free to attend.

Next Event

Monday 26th September 2011, 7.30pm - Dr Hannah Williams (Oxford) on The Violent Suicide of François Lemoyne: An 18th-Century Art History Mystery

Paris, 4 June 1737: the celebrated artist François Lemoyne commits suicide. It started as an ordinary day. Lemoyne had been to his studio to give a lesson to his students and taken a meal with his cousin. But then events took a macabre turn. Lemoyne retired to his bedroom, carefully locked the door, took up his sword, and proceeded to inflict upon his body multiple fatal stab wounds, before dropping to the floor and dying in a pool of blood.

Lemoyne’s death shocked and horrified his family and colleagues, and it has since presented something of a mystery for art historians. Why should this incredibly successful artist – first painter to Louis XV – have wanted to kill himself only months after completing what is now considered his magnum opus: the ceiling of the Apotheosis of Hercules at the Château de Versailles? Was it over money? Professional jealousy? A madness induced by lack of recognition? Could it have been murder? Or if it really was suicide, then how did Lemoyne complete his gruesome task?

With most of the clues now lost deep in the past, some art-historical sleuthing is necessary in order to retrieve the traces. In this paper, I attempt to solve these perplexing mysteries through a forensic and art-historical analysis of the object responsible: Lemoyne’s sword. Using police reports, autopsies, and witness statements, I piece together the final hours of Lemoyne’s life and offer a material reconstruction of the now lost fatal weapon, exploring what Lemoyne’s sword looked like, what he did with it, and what it meant to him. Drawn from a larger study investigating what artists’ personal possessions reveal about their everyday lives, this case explores the limits and possibilities of object-biography, and presents an exercise in recovering the material history of an object when that object no longer materially exists.

Can art history solve the crime? Come along and find out!

Biography: Hannah Williams is a Junior Research Fellow in Art History at St John’s College, Oxford. A specialist in 17th- and 18th-century French art, Hannah completed her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2010 and previously held a doctoral fellowship at the Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. She is currently writing a book on artists’ portraits and self-portraits entitled Face-to-Face with the Académie Royale: An Ethnography in Portraiture, which combines art-historical and anthropological approaches to investigate the culture of an early modern community of artists. Hannah is also researching a post-doctoral project – Painters and Parish Life – which traces the local social networks of artists in 18th-century Paris through a study of parish churches and religious art. With Katie Scott, she is writing a book on Artists’ Things, which offers an alternative guide to the material culture of 18th-century French artists through close studies of their personal possessions.
 

Directions & Details

The Monarch, Camden 40-42 Chalk Farm Road Camden NW1 8BG, http://www.monarchbar.com/events/

Telephone: 020 74822054

Email: info@monarchbar.com

Getting there

From Chalk Farm tube: Turn left out of the station and cross Chalk Farm Road at the lights. The pub is about five minutes walk down the road on the left.
From Camden Town: Take the Camden High Street exit and turn right. Head up the street past Camden Lock and under the rail bridge and proceed up Chalk Farm Road. The pub is a couple minutes walk from the bridge on the right.

By tube: Chalk Farm station (450m) – zone 2 / Camden Town station (530m) – zone 2

By train: Kentish Town West station (460m) / Camden Road station (550m)

By bus: 24 (24hrs), 27 (24hrs), 31, 168, N5, N28, N31 – click here for a local bus map.

Google Map