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Biography

GIll Perry

Gill Perry joined the Open University as a Lecturer in the Department of Art History in 1977 and became a Senior Lecturer in 1994. She was awarded a Professorship in Art History in the Faculty of Arts in 2007 and became Emeritus Professor of Art History in 2017.

She was Head of the Art History Department from 2005-08, and Head of Research and external collaborations from 2005-2016. She was Reviews Editor of the journal Art History from 1995 – 2001 and a panel member (Panel 2) of the Arts and Humanities Research Council from 2006-2010. She founded the Open Arts Archive in 2010, a major website and archive which stores collaborative events and art projects organized by the Open University and twenty collaborating museums and galleries across the UK, including Tate Galleries, Baltic, Barbican, MIMA Middlesbrough. She has given Visiting Professor Lecture Series at Duke University, USA, 2001, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver 2004, University of Hong Kong, 2011, Universities of Auckland and Wellington, 2013. She was Visiting Professor of Art History at Birkbeck College, University of London from 2019-2022.

Gill Perry joined the Open University as a Lecturer in the Department of Art History in 1977 and became a Senior Lecturer in 1994. She was awarded a Professorship in Art History in the Faculty of Arts in 2007 and became Emeritus Professor of Art History in 2017.

She was Head of the Art History Department from 2005-08, and Head of Research and external collaborations from 2005-2016. She was Reviews Editor of the journal Art History from 1995 – 2001 and a panel member (Panel 2) of the Arts and Humanities Research Council from 2006-2010. She founded the Open Arts Archive in 2010, a major website and archive which stores collaborative events and art projects organized by the Open University and twenty collaborating museums and galleries across the UK, including Tate Galleries, Baltic, Barbican, MIMA Middlesbrough. She has given Visiting Professor Lecture Series at Duke University, USA, 2001, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver 2004, University of Hong Kong, 2011, Universities of Auckland and Wellington, 2013. She was Visiting Professor of Art History at Birkbeck College, University of London from 2019-2022.

Research

Gill Perry has published books, articles and catalogue introductions on twentieth-century and contemporary art, and eighteenth-century British art and theatre, and has a special interest in issues of gender difference within art history and visual culture. After studying in Paris at the Ecole du Louvre in 1970-71, she developed an early research interest in early twentieth-century ‘avant-garde’ art in France, Germany and Europe, reflected in many of her publications from the 1990s, including her book Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde. Her research interests in gender and eighteenth-century portraiture were also developed in a series of publications on visual imagery within eighteenth-century theatrical culture, leading to her book Spectacular Flirtations and her curated exhibition The First Actresses. Her recent work has also focused on the role of mixed media, installation and performance in contemporary art, ‘decolonial’ art histories and the ‘global contemporary’, themes that have informed a series of articles and essays and her book Playing at Home: The House in Contemporary Art. Her new book Islands in Contemporary Art (2024) explores rich and varied interpretations of the island theme in modern and contemporary art. The book ranges across continents, with an emphasis on British, British diasporic and ex-colonial art.

Exhibitions she has curated include The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons, National Portrait Gallery, London 2011-12, Crystal World, The Royal Society, London, 2011, and Water, a group exhibition at the C2 Gallery, Stoke Hammond, 2013.

Teaching

At The Open University Gill Perry has written, taught and chaired courses on Modern Art and Modernism, Modern Architecture and Design, The Enlightenment, Arts Foundation, Introductions to Art History and Visual Culture, Art and its Global Histories, Art History MA.

She has supervised 12 PhD students and acted as external examiner at BA and MA level in 14 UK universities and acted as external examiner for 28 PhDs in UK universities, including the Courtauld Institute, University of London, Birkbeck College London, University of Leeds, University of Essex, Middlesex University, University of the Arts, London.