THE PHILADELPHIA JUNTO.: Turner New Assistant Director

Monday 6 May 2013

Turner New Assistant Director

Paul Mellon Centre
Expands Research Staff

London

Sarah Turner

Dr Sarah Victoria Turner has been appointed to the new post of Assistant Director for Research at the Paul Mellon Centre and will take up the position in November this year. She is currently a lecturer in the History of Art Department at the University of York, where she has worked for the past five years.
Sarah’s research focuses on art and visual culture in Britain and the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She specialises in cultural relationships between Britain and India in this period and has published widely on the display and reception of Indian art in Britain – a topic that is the focus of her forthcoming book, provisionally entitled Indian Impressions: Encounters with South Asia in British Art, c. 1900-1940.

Educated at the University of Cambridge, the University of Leeds and the Courtauld Institute, Sarah has a wide range of interests revolving around art in Britain from 1800 to 1950. Developing from her MA in Sculpture Studies at the University of Leeds, Sarah continues to work on sculpture in this period; she contributed an essay to the recent Modern British Sculpture exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, is a member of the Advisory Board for Tate’s new project on the sculptural practices of Henry Moore and is contributing to the forthcoming show on Victorian sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art and Tate. Other research projects include her role as Principal Investigator for the Leverhulme-funded international network Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, Modernism and the Arts c.1875-1960, and Co-Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded network Internationalism and Cultural Exchange c.1880-1920.
Sarah has worked on a number of exhibitions including Gilbert & George: Major Exhibition (Tate Modern, 2009) and William Etty: Art & Controversy (York Art Gallery, 2011), and also developed an online version of this latter display in collaboration with York Museums Trust and the University of York’s Digital Library Team. Sarah is a passionate advocate for the role of digital media in promoting and contributing to art historical research. At York, she developed and managed the implementation of the department’s History of Art Research Portal and is looking forward to working with colleagues at the Paul Mellon Centre in formulating new digital projects. At the Centre, she will also be taking a major role in conceiving and organising research seminars, lunchtime talks, workshops and conferences, and continuing her own scholarly research into British art of the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries.
Sarah commented: ‘It is a huge honour to be invited to join the staff at the Paul Mellon Centre in London. I am really looking forward to working with Mark Hallett and Martin Postle in developing new research projects and events, as well as collaborating with colleagues at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven. I am particularly excited about expanding the PMC’s web presence and working on innovative digital research projects.’
Mark Hallett, Director of Studies at the Centre, said: ‘I am extremely pleased that Sarah is going to be joining us; she is a brilliant, broad-ranging and dynamic scholar who will undoubtedly make a hugely positive contribution to our activities. We very much look forward to welcoming her in November’.

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Celebrating ....

Monday 6 May 2013

Turner New Assistant Director