Dr Joanne Anderson

Biography

Joanne is Reader in Art History and Honorary Curatorial Fellow. Prior to Aberdeen, she worked at the Warburg Institute in London (2015-2019) and in the art history departments at Birkbeck College, the University of Sussex and the University of Warwick.

Joanne is a leading specialist of Mary Magdalen and has appeared on BBC4's Britain's Lost Masterpieces and BBC R4's In Our Time on the topic of the saint. She was a member of the scholarly advisory committee for Mary Magdalene: the Exhibition (Museum Catherijneconvent, Utrecht, 2021-22) and contributor to its accompanying publication (2022). More broadly, she works on late medieval art in the mountains, mobility and experience of art, artistic production and patronage, as well as 20th-century exhibition history.

Research Overview

Joanne is a specialist of Mary Magdalen and particularly her late medieval cult and image. More broadly her research encompasses late medieval art in the mountains, mobility and experience of art, artistic production and patronage, as well as 20th-century exhibition history. 

Current Research

Slow Art - Late Medieval Art in the Mountains

Joanne’s current research project focuses on art in the landscape, proposing a new way of approaching images and objects from the standpoint of experiential viewing. She is particularly in interested in how environment and time influences the production, function and perception of art produced for Alpine communities as linked to the seasonal migrations of artistic workshops. The project springs from her previous work in the Alps and questions raised whilst travelling on foot in the mountains during varying weather conditions.

This research builds on her recent publications on the experience of looking at imagery on the outsides of buildings when travelling through the mountains and the relationality of art to poverty in this environment.

Frescoes from Florence

Joanne's second project is a monograph dedicated to the touring exhibition, Frescoes from Florence/The Great Age of Fresco (1968-72). The book focuses on questions of logistics, educational strategy and reception in popular and academic domains as it moved across continents and between diverse institutions in the name of cultural patrimony.

Past Research

Joanne has published extensively on Mary Magdalen, her late medieval cult and cultural icon status since 2012, including her 2019 monograph, Moving with the Magdalen. She maintains this research interest.

Collaborations

Joanne was the Co-Investigator of the AHRC Research Network, A Vision for Europe: Academic Action and Responsibility

Principle Investigator: Mick Finch (Central St Martins, University of the Arts London)

Project Partner: Johannes von Müller (Bilderfahrzeuge Project, The Warburg Institute)

The network investigated the material archive of the 1941 exhibition, English Art and the Mediterranean, organised by Fritz Saxl and Rudolf Wittkower, then director and photographic collection curator of the Warburg Institute. This exhibition, and its later publication, British Art and the Mediterranean, argued for a common European cultural tradition in a time of international crisis. The network brought together artists, historians, media theorists, curators, journalists, photographers and activists to reactivate this unique archival resource and explore its historical significance and contemporary resonance in the current Brexit climate.

Joanne co-curated the exhibitions, Bilder auf Wanderschaft. Das Warburg Institute und eine britische Kunstgeschichte (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich 29 May-30 June 2019) and  Ruins in the Archive: Constructing Visual Histories in Photography and Broadcast Media (British School at Rome, 14-430 Nov 2019) and co-edited the accompanying catalogue, Image Journeys. The Warburg Institute and a British Art History (Passau: Klinger Verlag, 2019).

https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/research-at-csm/a-vision-for-europe

Information about the 2016 pilot event can be found at: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/whats-on/events/vision-europe

Funding and Grants

Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Network Grant, 2019-20 - A Vision for Europe: Academic Action and Responsibility in Times of Crises. 

Teaching Responsibilities

Joanne contributes to teaching across all levels of the undergraduate Art History programme. She offers (on rotation) three research-led courses and one vocational course at honours level:

• Materialising Faith: Women, Art and Religion, 1150-1500 co-taught with Dr Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner (Divinity and History)
• Italian Mural Painting and the Making of Visual Cultures, 1400-1500
• Art and the City - Florence
• Curation: Theory and Practice, co-taught with University Collections

She also contributes to School interdisciplinarity by teaching sessions for:

• Power and Piety (History)

Joanne directs the MLitt Christianity and the Visual Arts, co-taught with Divinity (campus and online). She coordinates:

• Researching Art and Faith
• Materialising Faith: Women, Art and Religion, 1150-1500 co-taught with Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner (Divinity and History);
• Dissertation in Christianity and the Visual Arts

Non-course Teaching Responsibilities

Joanne is a personal tutor and provides support to students in and beyond the Department of Art History across all levels of study.