Abstract
Looking back now over the course of my PhD study, which feels like it has been a very long journey, it appears to me as a series of revolutions: that is, transformations in my way of thinking (hard now to contemplate that I have come out the other end of them) which completely changed my view, not just of my subject - the Henry Moore Studio at Dean Clough - but the art world within which I was working, and the way I wanted to write about it.When I embarked on the study in 2016, I was working as a collections curator at Leeds Art Gallery, based at the Henry Moore Institute. As the Institute is affiliated to the Henry Moore Foundation, which is the parent body of the Henry Moore Studio, I was – in theory - an insider to the project. In reality, the Studio had closed many years before I arrived on the scene, and I had never met Robert Hopper or any of the core group of people who worked there, so I came with little prior or special knowledge of the organisation. However, that is not to say that I came to the project empty-handed. Quite the opposite. As I see now (but only in retrospect), I was carrying around in my head an encompassing view of the art world, which permeated my professional practice. This did not relate to my work at the Institute or Leeds Art Gallery specifically, but a career spent working in and around institutions: from my art historical training (undertaken in a traditional university department), through several years of curatorial practice, latterly within the framework of a municipal gallery and specialist centre for the study of sculpture.
| Date of Award | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Alison Rowley (Co-Supervisor) |