Curator’s Circle
The De Morgans and their artwork continue to be of interest to scholars around the world today. With their kind permission, we have provided the research interests and publications (where relevant) of those with a particular interest in William or Evelyn De Morgan.
Judy Oberhaussen, Independent Art Historian
M.A. Art History, University of Iowa, M.A. Thesis: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Found.
Current Areas of Research:
- Evelyn De Morgan and Portraiture (with Nic Peeters)
- Eveleen Myers, 19th C. Photographic Portraitist (with Nic Peeters)
Past Research:
- Evelyn De Morgan and her Female Circle
- Evelyn De Morgan and Spiritualism
- Evelyn De Morgan and Victorian Social Issues
- Sophia De Morgan: Victorian Activist
- John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope’s Florentine Altarpiece (with Nic Peeters)
- Stanford Memorial Chapel: A Victorian Jewel House
- Pre-Raphaelite Ecclesiastical Stained Glass in America
Margaretta S Frederick, Annette Woolard-Provine Curator of the Bancroft Collection, Delaware Art Museum, Delaware USA
Research Interests
General:
19th century British paintings, prints, drawings and decorative art, as well as art patronage of the period
Specific:
- Women artists of the period including Evelyn de Morgan, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, and May Morris
- Frederick Shields’ Chapel of the Ascension
- William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement
Select Publications:
Frederick, Margaretta S. “On Frederic Shields’ Chapel of the Ascension, 1887-1910.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net, May 2012
Emma Merkling, PhD Candidate, Courtauld Institute of Art
Research interests:
• Evelyn De Morgan
• Late Victorian art
• Women artists
• Nineteenth-century science (especially physics, physiological aesthetics, and psychophysiology)
• Early modernism and modernist art
• Aestheticism
• Feminist theory
• Queer theory
Scott Thomas Buckle, Independent Art Historian
Interests:
19th Century British Art, particularly Pre-Raphaelite drawings and Victorian artists’ models.
Publications:
His article Is this the face of Alessandro di Marco? The forgotten features of a well-known Italian model, was published in the British Art Journal in 2012, and features Evelyn De Morgan’s painting The Gilded Cage.
Alistair Carew-Cox, Architectural Photographer
Current research interests:
Pre-Raphaelite stained glass, particularly the stained glass designs of William De Morgan, Ford Madox Brown, John George Sowerby, Walter Crane, and Frederic Shields, for the publication of a third volume on Pre-Raphaelite stained glass, Saints and Symbols, published by Seraphim Press, in collaboration with art historian and Pre-Raphaelite expert William Waters.
Alistair and William are working closely with the De Morgan Foundation, and many unpublished cartoons for glass from the Foundation’s collection will be included in the book. Intelligence on the whereabouts of William De Morgan glass or information on his work greatly received.
Publications:
- Angels & Icons
- Damozels & Deities
- Photography for Adrian Barlow’s book Espying Heaven on the stained glass of Charles Eamer Kempe.
Rob Higgins, Independent researcher and collector of De Morgan
Rob was bought up in Stoke on Trent and has been passionate about ceramics for all his life. From buying Moorcroft at the factory shop with pocket money in the 1970s, he has extended his interests to Arts and Crafts ceramics, and the tiles of William De Morgan in particular.
He has written number of books on ceramics, including Mid-Century Modern Tiles, Portmeirion Pottery, Ruskin Pottery, two books on the tiles and ceramics of William De Morgan, and another on Arts and Crafts tiles generally, which touches especially on William Morris.
Publications:
- Higgins R & Farmer W, Arts and Crafts Tiles – William De Morgan, Amberley Publishing, 2017
- Higgins R & Farmer W, Arts and Crafts Tiles – Morris to Voysey, Amberley Publishing, 2017
- Higgins RM, Robinson CS, William De Morgan, Art Potter, Shire Publications, Oxford, 2010
Professor Elise Lawton Smith, Professor of Art History, Sanderson Chair in Arts and Sciences, Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi USA
Select Publications:
- Evelyn De Morgan and the Allegorical Body (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2002)
- “Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Evelyn De Morgan, and the Progress of the Spirit.” Nineteenth Century Studies 27 (2013 [publ. 2017]): 105-127.
- “Evelyn De Morgan in the United States.” PRSUS. The Pre-Raphaelite Society Newsletter of the United States 20 (Fall 2008): 5.
- ‘Whom the gods love die young’: Evelyn De Morgan and the Legend of the Wandering Jew.”, British Art Journal 7.3 (Winter 2006/2007): 29-39.
- “Myth as Spiritual Allegory in the Art of Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919).” The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies n.s. 7 (Fall 1998): 53-73.
- “The Paintings of Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919).” Woman’s Art Journal 18:2 (Fall-Winter 1997-98): 3-10.
- “Evelyn Pickering De Morgan’s Allegories of Imprisonment.” Victorian Literature and Culture, 25:2 (1997): 293-317.
Dr Lucy Ella Rose, Lecturer in Victorian Literature, University of Surrey
Research interests:
- Victorian literature and visual culture
- Women’s life writing
- Creative partnerships, circles and networks
- Aestheticism and Decadence
- Women’s suffrage
Selected publications (the first being of primary interest for the De Morgans):
- Suffragist Artists in Partnership: Gender, Word and Image. Edinburgh University Press (Critical Studies in Victorian Culture series), Dec. 2017.
- ‘The Diaries of Mary Seton Watts (1849-1938): a Record of her Conjugal Creative Partnership with “England’s Michelangelo” George Frederic Watts.’ Life Writing (special issue: ‘Writing Lives Together: Romantic and Victorian Biography’) (April 2017).
- ‘A Feminist Network in an Artists’ Home: Mary and George Watts, George Meredith, and Josephine Butler.’ Journal of Victorian Culture (January 2016).
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