A fresh look at History of Art

Since joining the ICE staff in September, Dr Lydia Hamlett has been working hard to curate an engaging and accessible portfolio of courses that teach us about our heritage – and maybe our future too. We spoke to our new Academic Director in History of Art to find out how she’s bringing a fresh perspective to an enduring subject.

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My background is a mixture of research, teaching and curation at museums, heritage organisations and the University of Cambridge. Becoming an ICE Academic Director gives me a great opportunity to plan a programme that reaches as wide an audience as possible.

Re-appraising our shared heritage

We’re starting with two undergraduate courses in History of Art this autumn; a Certificate and a Diploma. The Certificate covers over 2,000 years of art history, starting with the Classical period. But what’s exciting for me is that we’ve extended the end point of that survey, bringing it right up to the current decade. We’re interested in the culture and contexts surrounding artists’ work and contemporary art has lots to tell us about the world we live in now.

With the Diploma, we’ve created a set of core modules taught by specialist researchers and in the final term of the year, we’ve introduced a new wildcard option. Our first wildcard is going to cover the art of Central Europe – Germany, Hungary, Poland – geographical areas rarely covered in traditional syllabuses.

For me, it’s important to use art as a lens to understand the perspectives of our neighbours, particularly in a globalised world where what it means to identify as a nation state and hold relationships with other countries is under more scrutiny than ever.

We’ll also be investigating our own cultural heritage, of course. My personal expertise is in mural painting but often these works get overlooked when we consider the history of British art and I think it’s time to re-evaluate that. Many murals were painted by migrants and, historically, we haven’t always valued this cultural exchange.

In a short time, we’ve assembled an amazing group of subject matter experts as tutors, many of whom are closely connected with the University of Cambridge History of Art department. We’ll be taking a research-led approach to teaching, meaning tutors will introduce their latest research to give students a richer experience. I think it’ll be really engaging for everyone.

Examining the collectors

We haven’t only been working on our award-bearing courses – we’ve developed some fascinating short and international summer courses too. This summer, I’m directing the Art and Visual Culture course, on the theme of ‘Patrons and Collections’, that draws on the University’s collections and includes seminars on subjects including women patrons. The Duchess of Marlborough, Sarah Churchill – recently portrayed as Queen Anne’s ousted confidante in the film, The Favourite – was one such patron. She drove mural commissions at Marlborough House and Blenheim Palace, both of which have plenty to say about her as a patron of the arts.

By changing how we view the subject, we want to show that History of Art isn’t an exclusive topic but one which is relevant and accessible to us all, right now.

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This article was originally published as part of the 2019 Lent term edition of Inside ICE.