Professor Frances Spalding CBE
Professor of Art History

Introduction

Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and biographer. She is the author of 'British Art since 1900', which has been widely used in schools, colleges and universiteies. She has also written a centenary history of the Tate and biographie of the artists Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant and Gwen Raverat, as well as of the poet Stevie Smith. She is Professor of Art History within the Fine Art section of SACS. In2009 she published 'John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art' with Oxford University Press, and her most recent book is 'Prunella Clough: Regioons Unmapped',  published by Lund Humphries. Her research interests cover art and architecture, cultural and social history.

Background

Frances Spalding initially taught art history at University of Sheffield-Hallam. At the start of her career she wrote extensively for the art press and became renowned as a specialist in 20th century British Art and as a biographer. In the 1900s she opted to work for a period as an independent scholar and during that decade was also closely involved with the English Centre of International PEN, a world-wide association of writers with a central commitment to freedom of expression. She has also been closely involved, over many years, with the Charleston Trust and its work to preserve and maintain the traditions associated with the Bloomsbury house, Charleston, in Sussex. In  2000, she returned to academic work with her appointment at the University of Newcastle. She is now Professor of Art History and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours, 2005.

Roles and Responsibilities

Frances Spalding is currently Chair of the Board of Examinations for Fine Art and Art History. She also sits on the University's Honorary Degrees Committee and on the HASS Faculty's Cultural Steering Group. She is Chair of the University's Public Lectures Committee and oversees its 'Insights' public lectures programme. She teaches  art history to students from within Fine  Art and from Combined Honours.

Qualifications

BA (Hons) First Class
PhD

Memberships

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art

Associate Member of the Artworkers' Guild. 

Member of English PEN 

Honours and Awards

Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art
Awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours, 2005

Research Interests

Frances Spalding is committed to work that does not compromise scholarship but which is open to all and therefore reaches a wide audience. Internationally renowned, she has appeared in television documentaries on Whistler, Tate Modern, and on the artists who lived at Charleston. Her 'British Art since 1900', in the Thames & Hudson World of Art series, has been widely used in schools, colleges and universities. She is both a specialist in twentieth-century British Art and a biographer, with the result that she has a broad knowledge of English social and cultural history. She has written some 15 books, including a biography of the poet Stevie Smith, as well as lives of the artists Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, John Minton and Gwen Raverat. With David Fraser Jenkins, she curated 'John Piper in the 1930s: Abstraction on the Beach' exhibition which was shown at Dulwich Picture Gallery in April 2003 and at the Djanogly Gallery, University of Nottingham in July 2003. In 2009 her two-person biography - John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art - was published by Oxford University Press and received wide acclaim. Her new book - Prunella Clough: Regions Unmapped - published by Lund Humphries is the first full account of this artist's work and her place within the British Art during the second half of the twentieth-centry. The subtitle - Regions Unmapped - refers to Clough's interest in the working environment, in urban and industrial landscapes, in 'edgelands', atrophy and the energy that remains in objects or machines that have lost their purpose or use.

Frances Spalding has lectured widely, at universities in this country and abroad, and has given many talks at arts and literary festivals and to learned societies. She recently gave the prestigious annual Seymour lecture at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, and she also speaks in tents at Arts and Literary Festivals, to local organisations. learned societies and in schools.

Current Work

Frances Spalding is currently writing an article on 'Contingency' for the Art Bulletin, as well as a short introduction to a book on the Eric Ravilious collection in the Fry Gallery at Saffron Walden. She is also preparing a talk on 'The Perils of Biography' and other talks on her new book on Prunella Clough. Future research interests include the changing face of art during the 1960s and '70s and the Anglo-American relations that developed in that period.

Research Roles

Adviser to a Research Council

Postgraduate Supervision

I have a particular interest in the relationship between art and national identity within British art, and in relations between England and America in the 1960s. I welcome opportunities to assist post-graduates in these areas, as well as in the more general field of 20th Century British Art and the practice of life writing.

Esteem Indicators

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art
CBE

Funding

Recent funding includes a Senior Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, as well as a British Academy Small Research Grant

Undergraduate Teaching

Frances Spalding teaches on the 'Preliminary Studies in Art History' for First Year Fine Art and Combined Honours students. She also teaches and co-ordinates two other modules, on 'Issues in Modern British Art' and on 'Issues in Portraiture' module for Second Year and Third Year students.

Postgraduate Teaching

Currently supervising one PhD student.