Bella Ramón is an MA Art and Business student at the Courtauld Institute with a background in Art History from the University of St Andrews. Her research examines the ways market categories are constructed and contested, themes that anchor her dissertation on the rise and fall of the dedicated Latin American art auction sale in the United States.
Alongside her studies, Bella has gained experience across the commercial gallery and art advisory sectors, as well as independently curating a private exhibition on Uruguayan artist Mario Giacoya, marking his second show in the USA. Of Uruguayan heritage herself, she brings a personal investment to her work, driven by a commitment to increasing the visibility of Latin American and Latinx artists and to critically examining the structures that have determined whose work reaches the international art market, and on what terms.
Rea Tonelli is an MA Art and Business student at the Courtauld Institute with a background in Art History and Business from George Washington University. Her interdisciplinary foundation reflects her interest in the relationship between creative practice and strategic thinking, and the ways in which they shape the contemporary art world. Her research centres emerging art markets and the ways in which new cultural economies are formed, particularly in post-communist contexts.
Rea’s experiences across gallery, museum, and non-profit settings have given her a broad understanding of the art world beyond the classroom. Her curiosity and love of learning shape her approach to every opportunity, as she continues to explore innovative approaches to contribute to a more accessible and inclusive art world.
In June 2026, we organised a photography and moving-image showcase that brought together emerging artists from across London’s art schools called I’m Nobody! Who Are You?
The idea for the showcase began from conversations about a gap we noticed within the student arts community. Living with two photographers, Bella often heard their frustration that there were few student-led opportunities dedicated to exhibiting photography and moving-image work. This absence is perhaps unsurprising given photography’s complex history within the art world, where it has often struggled to receive the same institutional recognition or prestige as more traditional mediums such as painting. Yet today, we believe lens-based practices provide some of the most compelling ways to engage with the anxieties, joys, and complexities of contemporary life. It is also a medium that we both care deeply about. We share a longstanding personal interest in analogue photography, and much of our academic work in art history has focused on the histories and innovations of photographic practice.
For these reasons, instead of waiting for someone else to make it happen, we decided to create our own event where emerging artists could present their work and connect with others in our community. So we launched an open call and got to work figuring out what it would take to bring the showcase to life!
Organising the showcase challenged us to bring the skills and knowledge we gained through our MA Art and Business programme beyond the comfort of a classroom and into a real-world setting. Through the course, co-led by Stephanie Dieckvoss and Tom Stammers, we gained insight into both the history of the art market and the business structures that shape the contemporary art world. Our classes, together with hearing directly from gallerists, artists, and other industry professionals, provided an invaluable foundation. Planning the showcase allowed us to translate these ideas into practice, from coordinating with artists and managing logistics to overseeing installation and promotion. One speaker in particular, however, inspired us to take the first step.
During a talk with our cohort, Courtauld alumnus Jeremy Epstein, co-founder of Edel Assanti Gallery, reflected on organising pop-up exhibitions with friends and fellow artists early in his career. His emphasis on creating opportunities, no matter how underprepared you feel, resonated with us. His message was simple: stay hungry. The showcase grew from that same spirit of entrepreneurship and initiative.
The biggest lesson we took away from this experience is the importance of just going for it! Neither of us had undertaken a project like this before, and seeing our idea slowly develop into a successful public exhibition is something we are incredibly proud of. While we made mistakes along the way, we realised the importance of trusting our instincts and remaining flexible as things inevitably do not go to plan. Ultimately, this gave us a confidence that could only come from having to make decisions under pressure and learning by doing. We plan to continue building on this experience by exploring new ways to get involved in and support the creative communities we care so much about.
Artists who participated in the showcase:
- Alejandro Perez Torres
- Mu-Chen Lee
- Alexandra (Sasha) Kudelnikova
- Andrew Willms
- Esmé Matthews
- Yashashree Rajendra Chakole
- Roya Powers
- Sasha Smithie
- Iñaki Malvido Prada
- Oscar Edwards
- Bowen Tang
The post I’m Nobody! Who Are You? Curating our first photography showcase appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>We are delighted to announce our programme of exhibitions and displays for 2027.
2027 EXHIBITIONS
Paula Rego: Dog Woman
5 February – 23 May 2027
This will be the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to the groundbreaking series of pastels created by Paula Rego (1935-2022) between 1994-95. Among the artist’s most striking, sensual and unsettling works, the large-scale Dog Woman pastels revolutionised the way in which women are represented. They also cemented Rego’s reputation as one of the most radical and influential artists of our time.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Turner and the Landscape Generation. Journeys in Watercolour
18 June – 5 September 2027
This exhibition explores the work of four ground-breaking British artists. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), John Constable (1776-1837), Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) were part of a pioneering generation who transformed British art and the practice of landscape watercolour.
Featuring masterpieces from the Courtauld Gallery alongside loans from major UK collections, the exhibition will trace journeys taken by these four artists – such as Turner’s travels in Switzerland and Germany, Cotman’s tour of Yorkshire, Constable’s trips to the Lake District, and journeys made by Girtin, Turner and Cotman across Wales. The exhibition will chart how these artists placed landscape at the heart of their practice and made it the focus of British art.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Ghost Ranch
1 October 2027 – 30 January 2028
This is the first exhibition devoted to the remarkable landscapes produced by the celebrated American artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) at and around her home and studio at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. These works, created over two decades from the mid 1930s to 1950s, form one of the most significant and original groups of landscape paintings of the 20th century, which transcend the conventions of the genre. Almost two dozen works will make up the exhibition, most of which have never been shown in the UK.
2027 DISPLAYS
Drawing in the Age of Bruegel: New Discoveries
5 February – 16 May 2027
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
This display from the Courtauld’s collection brings together an exceptional selection of drawings by Flemish artists of the 16th and early 17th centuries, revealing the extraordinary creativity, technical skill and observational power that shaped one of Europe’s most influential artistic periods. Among this group of artists, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/27–1569) stands as a pivotal figure in the evolution of the landscape tradition. His drawings are renowned for their sweeping panoramas and elevated viewpoints, while his scenes of daily life present the world as both keenly observed and imaginatively ordered.
Paula Rego: Pendle Witches
5 February – 23 May 2027
Project Space
The display focuses on a suite of etchings and aquatint prints titled Pendle Witches, which Paula Rego (1935–2022) executed in 1996, inspired by poems by the writer Blake Morrison (b. 1950). Morrison’s poems blend private, domestic themes and everyday situations with references to major events, including disquieting murder cases and ecological threats. At the time of the making of the Pendle Witches series, Rego and Morrison were close friends, as Morrison has said, ‘because we were exploring similar issues in our work – grief, violence, misogyny, sexuality, the knowingness or otherwise of children’. Yet, far from being illustrations of Morrison’s poems, Rego drew inspiration from them to create her own stories.
Rubens: The Master and his Circle
26 May – 12 September 2027
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) presided over one of the most dynamic artistic workshops of 17th century Europe, with drawing at the centre of his practice. For Rubens, draughtsmanship was a way of thinking: rapid pen sketches capture the first stirrings of complex compositional scenes, while chalk studies reveal his research into anatomical studies and his mastery of light and volume.
Rubens’s prolific output, international reputation and dynamic technical skills influenced many artists who learnt directly from the master or were inspired by him. Selected from the Courtauld’s collection, this display will showcase some of their works, including drawings by Anthony van Dyck, Jacques Jordaens and Abraham van Diepenbeeck. Together, these drawings illuminate a creative community defined by exchange, experimentation and the continual reworking of ideas that helped shape Baroque art across Europe.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Photographs at Ghost Ranch
1 October 2027 – 30 January 2028
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
This display will present around 20 photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe at her New Mexico home, drawn from photoshoots commissioned by Life Magazine from the famed photographers Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) and John Loengard (1934-2020) in 1948 and 1966, respectively. Featuring previously unpublished photographs and rare colour images, the display will give visitors an added sense of the extraordinary, vast landscapes around Ghost Ranch and of O’Keeffe’s life there, while offering insights into how her image was presented and marketed.
Vanessa Bell: A Rediscovery
October 2027 – February 2028
Project Space
An important new addition to the Courtauld’s leading collection of art by the Bloomsbury Group will go on display in October 2027. Previously unknown and not seen in public in over a century, this pair of painted wooden panels, attributed to Vanessa Bell (1879 – 1961), was made at the Omega Workshops in London between 1913 and 1916.
Originally the doors of a wardrobe, the panels feature two stylised female figures wearing the style of dresses sold at the Omega from the middle of 1915. Acquired the year the Omega Workshops closed in 1919, they have remained in the same family ever since and have been generously donated to the Courtauld, where they have undergone a major conservation project.
Courtauld Commission 2026: Ella Walker
From 3 September 2026
The John Browne Entrance Hall and Ticketing Hall
Artist Ella Walker (b.1993) has created two new site-specific commissions for The John Browne Entrance Hall and the Ticketing Hall of the Courtauld Gallery, which are free to visit.
Walker’s monumental canvases, The Studio and Verdaccio Wall, draw on iconography, costume and poses observed in Gothic sculpture and Renaissance painting, as well as popular culture, to conjure scenes that flicker mysteriously across time periods. Walker’s work revels in the interplay between drawing and painting, with graphite often left visible and paint used to produce delicate lines. Her paintings possess a matt, chalky quality that is evocative of fresco – a type of wall and ceiling painting made on wet plaster.
This is the second Courtauld Commission, a series of annual commissions by contemporary artists for the Courtauld Gallery, which launched in 2025 with new works by artist Rachel Jones.
MA Curating exhibition
18 June – 28 September 2027
Project Space
A new exhibition curated by the Courtauld Institute’s MA Curating students will open at the Courtauld Gallery in summer 2027.
The post The Courtauld Gallery announces 2027 exhibition programme appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>The post Ella Walker unveils new commission for the Courtauld Gallery appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>Artist Ella Walker (b.1993, Manchester, UK) today unveils two new site-specific commissions for the Courtauld Gallery – the second in a series of annual commissions by contemporary artists to create new work for the gallery.
The new artworks are on display in The John Browne Entrance Hall and the Ticketing Hall and are free to visit.
Ella Walker creates monumental canvases that act like stages where bewitching figures gather. They combine observed settings and architectures with visual references spanning fine art, cinema, and fashion. They are dominated by figures whose gestures and interactions are both familiar and confounding, eschewing expected behaviour and transcending fixed roles. The new artworks continue the artist’s dialogue with traditional techniques and subjects from the Renaissance period, richly represented at the Courtauld Gallery.
In Verdaccio Wall (2026), Walker draws on iconography, costume, and poses observed in Gothic sculptures and Renaissance painting as well as popular culture, creating scenes that flicker between time periods. The work depicts a group of women many of whom are smiling, breaking with traditional portraiture. Combining drawing and painting, with graphite often left visible and paint used to produce delicate lines, Walker’s paintings have a matt, chalky quality evocative of frescos.
In The Studio (2026), Walker paints the artist’s studio as a space in which images and memories are gathered in a collage-like process. Walker builds on the subject of the artist’s studio by reimagining Renaissance settings, such as Sandro Botticelli’s prolific workshop and whose use of bold colour, rendering of bodily volume and gesture have been a touchstone for Walker in creating this commission. She is fascinated by the abrupt shift in scale between figures found in his The Trinity with Saints Mary Magdalen and John the Baptist (around 1491-94), on view on the second floor of the Courtauld Gallery – an effect that she deploys in this work to a less exaggerated extent. The street depicted in this work is based on urban sites and architecture, reconstructed from the artist’s memory, combined with found imagery.
Ella Walker said: “The Courtauld Commission is an opportunity to think deeply about the surface of my paintings, the method of applying pigment to an absorbent ground, a ground that is rich with marble and chalk, and is very absorbent and textured. I hope the colours will glow, have transparency and movement within the collection of particles.”
Walker lives and works in London. She studied Fine Art at The Glasgow School of Art and The Royal Drawing School. Recent solo exhibitions include Idolâtrie, Le Château – Centre for Contemporary Art and Heritage of Aubenas, France (2025); The Romance of the Rose, Pilar Corrias, London (2024); After great pain, a formal feeling comes, Casey Kaplan, New York (2024); and Chorus, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany (2023).
This is the second in a series of annual commissions by contemporary artists to be displayed in The John Browne Entrance Hall and Ticketing Hall at the Courtauld Gallery. Since the transformation of its Gallery in 2021, the Courtauld has significantly expanded its offering of contemporary art, including major exhibitions by Peter Doig and Claudette Johnson, and a major commission by Cecily Brown. The first European solo exhibition of acclaimed New York painter Salman Toor will open on 2 October 2026. In January, the Courtauld also announced it will be creating two new galleries dedicated to contemporary art, set to open in 2029 as part of the development of its new world-class campus at Somerset House
The post Ella Walker unveils new commission for the Courtauld Gallery appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>MA Art and Business students at the Courtauld Institute have recently undertaken a consultancy project at major London art institutions including Christie’s, London Gallery Weekend and Mall Galleries | Federation of British Artists as part of their course.
The Courtauld Institute’s one-year MA Art and Business, launched in September 2025, is taught in collaboration with King’s Business School, and offers an unparalleled opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge you’ll need to succeed in today’s commercial art world. The consultancy project encompasses a group and individual component and allows Courtauld students to demonstrate their skills in evaluating the professional environment of the art market and to apply their learning in a practical context.
The teams of students acted as consultants, working closely with their clients to come up with new solutions to their individual business challenges, which included pitching their ideas to the clients. Their business development recommendations included:
- Developing new platforms for registering client taste
- Programming strands that marry art and nightlife
- Demystifying the process of art collecting
Dr Leili Sreberny-Mohammadi, who lectures on the programme, said “The first year of the project was a real success, demonstrating the creativity, ingenuity and business acumen of the student cohort. Client feedback highlighted the passion, professionalism and innovation of the students and excitement for future collaborations.”
Find out more about MA Art and Business at the Courtauld Institute.
The post Courtauld MA Art and Business students undertake consultancy project at major art institutions appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>Dr Lan Pu has joined the Courtauld Institute as Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Lecturer in Conservation of Buddhist Heritage.
Lan has an MA in the Conservation of Wall Paintings and a PhD from the Institute, and a Master’s in Buddhist Studies from The University of Hong Kong. Her PhD thesis was on “Connections in the Making and Meaning of Bhutanese Wall Painting: Tango Utse, 17th – 20th Century.”
Lan has worked as a wall paintings conservator in the UK, Bhutan, and India. Lan has taught at the Courtauld Institute on the Art History and Conservation of Buddhist Heritage MA, and on the Conservation of Wall Paintings MA as a teaching fellow, as well as for the Graduate Diploma programme. Lan’s research interests range from Buddhist wall paintings to thangkas in museum and temple collections. She has published in Building Craft Traditions in Tibetan and Himalayan Architecture and is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled “A Thin Section of Memory: Tracing the Multi-identity of Tango Monastery Through its Materiality.” Her research has been recognised by various funders, including the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global.
Dr Clare Richardson, Head of Conservation, said: “It is always special to welcome back our alumni in a new capacity, and so we are particularly delighted to have Lan join the conservation faculty at the Courtauld. Lan brings a wealth of specialist expertise to the study of Buddhist heritage from her research interests, alongside her broader knowledge and practical experience of wall paintings conservation. Lan’s teaching uses experiential learning to give a unique connection to the materiality of Buddhist Heritage which is both challenging and exciting for students, and I am excited to see how she will develop the conservation strand of this unique, interdisciplinary MA.”
Learn more about postgraduate study at the Courtauld Institute.
The post Dr Lan Pu joins as Robert H. N. Family Foundation Lecturer in Conservation of Buddhist heritage appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>Georgia O’Keeffe: Ghost Ranch
1 October 2027 – 30 January 2028
Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries
The Courtauld has announced a major exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Ghost Ranch, opening in Autumn 2027.
The exhibition will be the first devoted to the remarkable landscapes produced by the pioneering American artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) at and around her home and studio at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. These works, created over two decades from the mid 1930s to 1950s, form one of the most significant and original groups of landscape paintings of the 20th century and transcend the conventions of the genre. Almost two dozen works will make up the show, with most of them having never before been shown in the UK.
In 1929, O’Keeffe’s life and art underwent a dramatic change when she began spending time in the remote desert landscapes of northern New Mexico. Transfixed by their unique light, vast skies and rugged terrain, she returned for longer periods every year throughout the 1930s, deepening her connection to the region which would eventually become her home. In 1934 she discovered Ghost Ranch, a remote dude ranch in the high desert set amidst a dramatic landscape of red and yellow cliffs. Ghost Ranch became O’Keeffe’s centre in New Mexico; she rented a house there during subsequent summers before purchasing the Rancho de los Burros in 1940, creating a home and studio on the property.
The extraordinary terrain around Ghost Ranch became a major subject of O’Keeffe’s art over the following years. Her paintings depict the weathered rock formations surrounding the property and vast vistas of the looming flat-topped mountain, Cerro Pedernal, as well as visionary works featuring over-scaled flowers, bones, and skulls, which she collected from the desert ground.
With no works by O’Keeffe in UK public collections, opportunities to see her paintings in this country are rare. The exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery will feature major loans from US institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, as well as an outstanding group of works from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a display in the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, Georgia O’Keeffe: ‘Life’ at Ghost Ranch, which will present around 20 photographs of O’Keeffe at her New Mexico home, drawn from photoshoots commissioned by Life Magazine from the famed photographers Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) and John Loengard (1934-2020) in 1948 and 1966, respectively. Featuring previously unpublished photographs and rare colour images, the display will give visitors an added sense of the extraordinary, vast landscapes around Ghost Ranch and of O’Keeffe’s life there, while offering insights into how her image was presented and marketed.
This exhibition is supported by The Huo Family Foundation.
Tickets go on sale in 2027. Sign up to the Courtauld Gallery newsletter to hear our latest announcements and more.
Courtauld Members get free unlimited entry to all exhibitions, access to presale tickets, priority booking to selected events, advance notice of art history short courses, exclusive events, discounts and more. Join at courtauld.ac.uk/members
You might also like
The post A major exhibition of works by Georgia O’Keeffe to open at the Courtauld Gallery in 2027 appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>
Upmanyu A. Magotra is an AHRC funded Collaborative Doctoral and Curatorial Fellow at Tate and the Courtauld, on the project ‘Imperial Intimacies: Portraiture and the East India Company, c.1757–1857’. He holds an MA History of Art, specialising in Early Modern Asian and Islamic Art, from the Courtauld Institute and a dual bachelor’s degree in law and liberal arts from Jindal Global University. A recipient of the Princess Diana Award for art-led social entrepreneurship, Upmanyu has worked with leading collections and institutions worldwide, including the Art of Heritage Collection in Saudi Arabia, Eka Archiving Resources and India Art Fair.
Instagram: @upmanyu.magotra
I was born in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in India in a town called Udhampur, 65 kms away from the closest museum in Jammu, The Hari Palace. The palace, the residence of the erstwhile royal family of J&K, sits at the mountain top overlooking the Tawi river, where it greets the distant vehicles crossing the bridge, witnessing all that has passed in front of its eyes over the last hundred years. In addition to the Hari Palace, an endless list of Mughal monuments in Kashmir and later, New Delhi also brewed in me a fascination for the history and art of empires.
These formative experiences of beauty and curiosity were the key factors that led me to pivot from a career in law to one in History of Art, anchored at the Courtauld Institute and led by leading scholars of Trans-Asiatic art history. A few weeks into the MA, my supervisor and guide, Professor Sussan Babaie imparted a key lesson–that art history, as opposed to a romantic quest of beauty, is a scientific inquiry of objects that factually determine our shared histories. That the knowledge and challenge lies in one’s ability to look. To observe.
With that preface, I spent the next incredible nine months within a small cohort of friends, studying the early-modern empires, where borders were ambiguous and cultures were the determinants of convergence and divergence. Sometimes, the seminars would take us on an imaginary stroll through Naqsh-e-Jahan square in Isfahan and other times object-based research found me uncovering the mysteries of culturally hybrid objects, such as a jade jar with Mughal design and Mandarin inscriptions. Even though some journeys we imagined, others we partook in, first to Lisbon, to experience Eurasian cultural exchange and later to the University of Edinburgh, to study the 14th century manuscript Jami’ al-Tawarikh, an early example of Persian art of the books.
Before the end of the MA, Professor Babaie took our Special Option to visit the royal residence at the Windsor Castle. There, we experienced the Padshahnama, the illustrated biography of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, and one of the most significant art objects in the world. Looking at the Padshahnama inspired the idea behind my MA dissertation, on which I was awarded a High Distinction. More viscerally, it was an indescribable sensory experience, with the object’s arresting beauty and historical significance.
After the MA, I relocated to Saudi Arabia, working as an Archivist of 19th and 20th century Islamic and Middle Eastern objects in the Kingdom’s prestigious Art of Heritage collection. Over the course of a year, I archived and researched over 10,000 objects that reinforced my ability to look and observe, much like I was taught to do at the Courtauld Institute–where I returned last fall (2025) after being awarded the AHRC funded Tate-Courtauld Collaborative Doctoral Partnership, mentored by Dr Tom Young (Courtauld Institute) and Dr Alice Insley (Tate).
The doctoral and curatorial project focuses on portraiture produced during and in connections to the British Empire in India and takes on the 18th and 19th centuries of Indo-British history and visual production. A year into it, I have found the PhD to be a mediation between learning and unlearning– my supervisors have helped me expand the scale of my research capabilities, shifting the axis to include British portraiture and art theory, and to recognise my own positionality as an Indian historian within British networks of knowledge production.
As I move forward in my doctoral and curatorial work, I am particularly looking forward to beginning teaching at the Courtauld Institute, where I hope to share, challenge, and expand the ways in which we engage with objects and histories. The journey that began with curiosity now continues with responsibility: to look closely, and to help others do the same.
The post The Courtauld Effect: Thinking, Seeing, Becoming appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>Jessica Morgan, who studied for an MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute in 1992, has been confirmed as the new director of Tate.
Having worked as a curator at Tate for more than a decade, she will now return to the organisation as its Director in January, overseeing Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, and St Ives.
She leaves her role as Director of Dia Art Foundation, which she has held since 2015.
Morgan said, “I look forward to this pivotal next stage at Tate and, most importantly, continuing and advancing the incredible work of Tate’s committed and talented team in the years to come.”
The Courtauld alumni community spans 83 countries, forming an international powerhouse that influences the arts and creative sectors on a global scale. Morgan joins a number of Courtauld alumni running major museums and galleries in the UK and worldwide, including:
- Dr Nicholas Cullinan OBE, Director of the British Museum (BA 2002, MA 2003, PhD 2010)
- Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington (MA 1991)
- Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery (BA 1987, MA 1989, PhD 1995)
- Dr Alexander Sturgis CBE, Director of the Ashmolean (PhD 1991)
- Dr Luke Syson, Director of Fitzwilliam Museum (BA 1987, PhD 1995)
- Dr Caroline Campbell, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland (MA 1995, PhD 2000)
Read more about Courtauld alumni here.
The post Courtauld Alumna Jessica Morgan named new Tate director appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>Professor Jo Applin FBA, specialist in modern and contemporary art at the Courtauld Institute, has been elected to the British Academy’s Fellowship.
92 distinguished scholars have been elected this year in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the humanities and social sciences. The newly elected Fellows come from 28 universities across the United Kingdom, alongside 32 International Fellows and two Honorary Fellows in recognition of their exceptional achievements in law and international affairs.
Professor Jo Applin joined the Courtauld Institute in 2016, after eleven years teaching at the University of York. From 2018 to 2021 she was Head of the History of Art Department, and currently serves as Director of the Centre for the Art of the Americas.
Professor Jo Applin said:
“I am deeply honoured to have been elected a Fellow of the British Academy. At a time when the Arts and Humanities are under increasing pressure within UK universities, the British Academy’s role as a champion for our disciplines has never been more important. I look forward to working with fellow Academicians to advocate for the Arts and Humanities and to demonstrate their profound value to society as well as to academic life.”
Professor Susan J. Smith PBA, President of the British Academy, said:
“I am delighted to welcome our newest Fellows to the British Academy. Each has made an outstanding contribution to their field, and together they reflect the remarkable breadth and depth of scholarship across our disciplines.
“At a time when society is grappling with radical uncertainty in the face of technological, economic and environmental change, the humanities and social sciences have never been more important. Insights from economics, geography and political studies help us navigate geopolitical tensions, while literature, history and philosophy – to name a few of the disciplines the Academy represents – fuel our creative industries and help people to better understand themselves and each other.
“Our new fellows join a community of scholars with unparalleled expertise, dedicated to advancing research, fostering collaboration across disciplines and demonstrating the value of the humanities and social sciences. I am proud to give my warmest congratulations to them all on their election today.”
The post Professor Jo Applin FBA elected to the British Academy’s Fellowship appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>The Courtauld Institute features in a new publication from London Higher, the voice of the capital’s higher education sector, which aims to demonstrate the ways in which London’s higher education provision combines a scale, diversity and excellence unmatched among its global peers. The Courtauld Institute was also recently named the world’s top institution for the study of History of Art according to QS World University Rankings 2026.
Their new publication marks the launch of a broader campaign, with London stakeholders joining forces with the capital’s universities, conservatoires, specialist institutions and research centres to make the case for London as the Higher Education Capital of the World.
In a foreword to the publication, the Mayor of London describes London’s higher education sector as a critical national asset, helping to drive growth, opportunity and international influence for the UK. The report shows that:
- London is the world’s leading higher education city by scale, diversity and global influence.
- The capital combines a concentration of universities, specialist institutions and research centres found nowhere else on earth.
- London’s higher education institutions contribute more to the UK economy than the Premier League and employ more people than Sainsbury’s nationwide.
- The benefits generated by London’s higher education sector extend well beyond the capital through research collaboration, graduate talent, business creation and international investment.
These findings reflect the Courtauld’s long-standing position as a leading global centre for the visual arts. Founded in London in 1932 by Samuel Courtauld as an academic centre devoted to the serious study of the history of art, the Courtauld Institute has been an independent college of the University of London since 2002.
The post New campaign champions London as the Higher Education Capital of the World appeared first on Courtauld.
]]>