Dr Deborah Schultz

Deborah Schultz is an art historian who teaches at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels on a range of subjects. Her research focuses on historiography, photography, and the representation of memory in twentieth-century and contemporary art. Following a PhD at the University of Oxford, she was a Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, and a Leverhulme Trust Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Sussex. During Michaelmas Term 2015 she was an Academic Visitor in the Department of Art History at the University of Oxford for her current research project on ‘Photo Archives in the History of Art History’ (to be published by Routledge 2024). She has published widely and is a regular contributor to Art Monthly and other contemporary art journals.

• PhD, University of Oxford, Department of the History of Art, 1998 
• BA (Hons) Fine Art (Sculpture) (First Class), Gray's School of Art and Design, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, 1988 
• Art Foundation Course, Harrow School of Art and Design, Harrow, 1985

• 2004, University of Sussex, History of Art department
• 1998-2002, Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London
• 1999, University of Georgia at the University of Oxford
• 1999, University of Warwick, History of Art department
• 1992-5, University of Dundee, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Fine Art department
• 1991-2, The Robert Gordon University, Gray’s School of Art and Design, Aberdeen, Fine Art department

Books

• Photo Archives and the Place of Photography, co-edited with Geraldine Johnson (London & New York: Routledge, 2024)
• Pictorial Narrative in the Nazi Period: Felix Nussbaum, Charlotte Salomon and Arnold Daghani, co-authored with Edward Timms (London: Routledge, 2009)
• Marcel Broodthaers: Strategy and Dialogue (Bern, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007)

Selected Essays and Chapters in Edited Books and Exhibition Catalogues

• ‘Archives and institutional memory’ in Photo Archives and the Place of Photography co-edited with Geraldine Johnson (London & New York: Routledge, 2024)
• ‘The Art Fair Booth as Curated Social Space’ in The Art Fair: The Rise of a Global Phenomenon, Veronika Korbei, Johannes Nathan and Nirmalie Mulloli (eds), in the series Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets (Leiden: Brill, 2024)
• Space and process: the work of Barbara Loftus’ in Barbara Loftus: The Distanced Observer/Die Distanzierte Beobachterin, limited edition artist’s book in two volumes (Brighton: Scrutineer Publishing, 2022)
• ‘The (re)constructed self in the safe space of the family photograph’, in Picturing the Family, Silke Arnold-de Simine and Joanne Leal (eds) (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 135-150
• ‘Proximity and the viewer in contemporary curating practices’, in ‘On Proximity’, special issue of Performance Research, Louise Owen & Ben Cranfield (eds) (2017), 23-29
• Entry on Arnold Daghani in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)
• ‘Investigating the unknown: crossing borders in contemporary art’, in Crossing Borders: Transition and Nostalgia in Contemporary Art, Ming Turner & Outi Remes (eds) (Taipei: Artouch, 2015), 215-225
• ‘Word and image in times of crisis’, in The Art Book Tradition in Twentieth-Century Europe, Kathryn Brown (ed.) (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 89-102
• Entries on ‘Dan Perjovschi’ and on ‘Romanian art after 1989’ for Grove Art Online’s articles on Central and Eastern European art, Anna Brzyski (ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
• ‘Three-dimensional learning: exploring responses to learning and interacting with artefacts’ in Academic Museums: Exhibitions and Education, Stefanie S. Jandl and Mark S. Gold (eds), (Edinburgh and Cambridge, MA: MuseumsEtc, 2012), 166-189
• ‘Photographic traces of history and memory’ in Julia Winckler, Traces/Spuren, exhibition catalogue (London: Austrian Cultural Forum, 2012), pp. 5-6
• ‘Crossing Borders: Migration, Memory and the Artist’s Book’, in Moving Subjects, Moving Objects: Migrant Art, Artefacts and Emotional Agency, Maruška Svašek (ed.) (Oxford: Berghahn, 2012), 201-221
• ‘Monuments as Visual Memory’, in Matter and History, Anca Benera and Alina Serban (eds) (Bucharest: Centre for Visual Introspection, 2011), 235-250
• ‘Methodological Issues: Researching Socialist Realist Romania’, in Local Strategies, International Ambitions. Modern Art and Central Europe 1918-1968, Vojtech Lahoda (ed.) (Prague: Artefactum, 2007), 223-228
• ‘Uncovering the Optical Unconscious: The Photography of Chrystel Lebas’, in ChrystelLebas: L’espace temps - Time in Space (London: Azure Publishing, 2003), 5-12
• ‘The Conquest of Space’: On the Prevalence of Maps in Contemporary Art (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2001), Essays on Sculpture, No. 35
• Co-authored with Martin Kemp, ‘Us and them, this and that, here and there, now and then: collecting, classifying, creating’, in Strange and Charmed. Science and the Contemporary Visual Arts, Siân Ede (ed.) (London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2000), 84-103

 Selected Journal Articles   

• ‘Letter from Kraków’, Art Monthly, February 2024, 43-5
• ‘Fiona Tan’s “Footsteps” Through a Dutch Film Archive’, Frith Street Gallery, ArtAsiaPacific online, December 2023
• ‘Art and Place: Crossing Borders in the Work of Perejaume’, in Arts Special Issue ‘A 10-Year Journey of Arts’ 11: 35 (January 2022) (online)
• ‘Anne-Marie Creamer: Dear Friend, I Can No Longer Hear Your Voice’, Sir John Soane Museum, London, Art Monthly, April 2022, 35-6
• Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2020) book review in Art Monthly, October 2020
• ‘Anna Barriball: Fade’, Frith Street Gallery, London, Art Monthly, May 2019, 32
• Griselda Pollock, Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018) book review in Kunstchronik (Munich), 2019, 183-190
• ‘Contemporary Art Today’, introduction to student reviews in After Nyne (print), vol. 20, July 2018, 114-5
• ‘Reflections on language, location, history and identity at documenta 14’, After Nyne (online), August 2017
• ‘Studying Contemporary Art’, introduction to student reviews in After Nyne (print), vol. 16, July 2017, 138-9
• ‘31 Women: Contemporary Complexity’, Breese Little, After Nyne (online), June 2017
• ‘Dayanita Singh: Museum of Shedding’, Frith Street Gallery, London, Art Monthly, February 2017, 32-3
• ‘Photography in Academic Research’, conference review, Birkbeck College, London at https://fotobjekt.hypotheses.org/1315, 2016
• ‘The Science of Imaginary Solutions’, Breese Little, Art Monthly, July-August 2016, 31-2
• Idit Nathan: Footnotes Playing Dead’, Standpoint Gallery, Art Monthly, February 2015, 25-6
• ‘Family Ties: Reframing Memory’, Peltz Gallery, Aesthetica online edition, July 2014
• ‘Marcel Broodthaers: Collected Writings’ book review, Art Monthly, February 2014, 35
• ‘Cold War utopia: The Family of Man then and now’, Art Monthly, December-January 2013-14, 34
• 'Lawrence Weiner’, Lisson Gallery, Art Monthly, February 2013, 28-29
• ‘Alighiero e Boetti’, Tate Modern, Art Monthly, April 2012, 20-22
• ‘Raeda Saadeh’, Rose Issa Projects, Aesthetica online edition, March 2012
• ‘Public memory and national identity under construction: The trajectory of monuments in Romania in the Communist and Post-Communist periods’, Centropa (New York), January 2010, 56-66
• ‘Chrystel Lebas: The Wait: Culture and nature: The immensity and imagination of the forest’, Portfolio, November 2008, 34-5
• ‘Displacement and Identity: Arnold Daghani in Socialist Realist Romania’, Centropa (New York), Volume 3.2 (May 2003), 116-131
• ‘”Podbόj przestzeni”: O mapach w sztuce wspόłczesnej’, Czas Kultury (Poznań), nr. 2 (107) (2002), 47-58
• ‘In Absentia’, Czas Kultury (Poznań), nr. 1 (106) (2002), 118-120
• ‘Displacement and Identity: Arnold Daghani in Socialist Realist Romania’, www.artmargins.com, June 2002
• ‘In Absentia: Reviewing the Retrospective’, Art Monthly, September 2001, 7-9
• ‘Telling Tales – Profile of Emma Kay’, Art Monthly, March, 2001, 22-23
• ‘Flights of Fancy – Panamarenko’, Art Monthly, March 2000, 13-16

Deborah regularly writes book and exhibition reviews for Art Monthly and other contemporary art journals.

Dr Schultz’s research explores art historiography, photographic practices and archives, and the representation of memory in 20th century and contemporary art. She welcomes PhD students interested in these areas. 

First Supervisor PhD thesis: Nellie Hayes, ‘Isaac Grünewald: Heritage and Legacy in the Swedish Avant-Garde’ (completed 2022).

Dr Schultz has also been internal examiner and external examiner on a number of PhD projects. 

• Regent’s University HASS Research Fund to give paper on ‘Changing contexts, challenging amnesia’ at Photo Archives VII: The Majority World, Villa La Pietra, New York University Florence, organized by Akkasah, the Center for Photography at New York University Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence (2019)
• Regent’s University HASS Research Fund to give paper on ‘Rediscovered, re-viewed and revalued’ at Memory / Archive / Document – Arts and Architecture, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2018)
• Regent’s University HASS funding for research at documenta 14, Kassel (2017)
• Kress Foundation (New York); John Fell Fund and the History Faculty’s Sanderson Fund at the University of Oxford; and Christ Church, Oxford to fund Oxford conference on Photo Archives: Photo Archives and the Place of Photography (2017)
• Regent’s University HASS funding for ‘Image Collections in Florence, Italy’ research, 2015
• Regent’s University HASS funding as teaching abatement for project on ‘The Image Collection in the History of Art History’, 2015
• Regent’s University HASS funding for ‘The Family of Man’ project, 2014
• HASS Faculty Research Grant for ‘19th century French art research’, 2013
• HASS Faculty Research Grant for ‘Research on contemporary art at Documenta 13’, 2012

• International Conference (co-organiser with Andrew Chesher): London’s Art Networks and Marcel Broodthaers in the 1970s, Chelsea College of Arts (2023)
• Conference session (co-convenor with Sian Vaughan): History and memory: the contemporary artist as archivist, Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, London (2022)
• Seminar (convenor): The Representation of Memory, for PhD and post-docs, Regent’s University London: The Representation of Memory, May 2018; Research Methods, July 2018; After 2001, October 2018; Activating Archives, June 2019
• International Conference (co-convenor with Geraldine Johnson): Photo Archives VI: Photo Archives and the Place of Photography, Two-day conference at Oxford University and Christ Church, Oxford (2017), funded by Kress Foundation, Oxford University, and Christ Church, Oxford
• Conference (co-convenor with Dennis de Caires): Artists’ Books: Collaborations, Richmond American International University in London (2015)
• Conference (convenor): Conflict, Document, Representation: From the Habsburg Empire to the Holocaust, Austrian Cultural Forum London (2009)
• Conference (convenor): Artists in Exile: Representations of Migration and Loss, University of Sussex (2007)
• Conference session (co-convenor with David Crowley): Art, History and Memory in post-war Eastern and Central Europe, Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, Nottingham (2004)
• Seminar (convenor): The Role of Photography: Recovery of Memory, Resistance to Forgetting, University of Sussex (2002)
• Conference (convenor): Artists’ Organizations, Department of Fine Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee (1995)

• ‘Exploring the Intersection of Decolonial Critique and Immersive Art’ at Contested Infrastructures. Art Criticism and the Institutionalisation of Art, 55th International AICA Congress, Kraków, November 2023
• ‘The Industrial Poems of Marcel Broodthaers’ at Marcel Broodthaers Study Day, Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, October 2022
• ‘Travelling Words’ at Marcel Broodthaers and Cinema: Cinematic Poems, Moving Scripts, Cinematek, Brussels, June 2022
• ‘The Role of Online Viewing Rooms at Art Fairs’, at Artworld Reflexes and Alternative New World, AICA Online International Conference, 2020
• ‘Changing contexts, challenging amnesia’ at Photo Archives VII: The Majority World, Villa La Pietra, New York University Florence, 2019
• ‘Politics and representation: exploring the past and the possible future through Rosângela Rennó, Rio-Montevideo’ at Memories of the Future: Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2019
• Invited speaker, ‘Photo Archives and the History of Photography’, at Digitising the Paul Mellon Centre's Photo Archive, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 2018
• ‘Rediscovered, re-viewed and revalued’ at Memory / Archive / Document – Arts and Architecture, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 2018
• Session chair and paper on ‘Archival photographs and image circulation in Rosângela Rennó, Rio-Montevideo’ at photography + (con) text: Photography in Academic Research: Images in the Post-Truth Era, Birkbeck College, London, 2018
• The Art Fair as Curated Event’ at The Art Fair, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, 2017
• ‘The Materiality of Photo Archives’ at Materiality and the Visual Arts Archive: Matter and Meaning, ARLIS symposium, University of Brighton, 2016
• Invited Round Table speaker and paper on ‘Representations of the Family in Photography’ at photography + (con) text: Photography in Academic Research, Birkbeck College, London, 2016
• ‘Photo archives and the role of photography in art education’ at Art history for artists: interactions between scholarly discourse and artistic practice in the 19th century, Technische Universität Berlin, 2016
• ‘Proximity and the viewer in contemporary curating practices’ at Conventions of Proximity in Art, Theatre and Performance, Birkbeck College, London, 2016
• Chair of Display & Dissemination panel at Artists’ Books: Collaborations, Richmond American International University in London, 2015
• ‘The (Re)constructed Self in the Safe Space of the Family Photograph’ at Picturing the Family: Media, Narrative, Memory at Birkbeck College, London, 2014
• ‘Learning through artists’ books’, Session on Artists’ Books since c. 1970: Making, Teaching, Collecting, at the AAH annual conference, Royal College of Art, 2014
• 'Representations of the Family in Contemporary Photography’ at Intimate Archives: Photography and Life Writing, Wolfson College, Oxford, 2013
• Chair of Curatorial Interventions panel at Intimate Archives: Photography and Life Writing, Wolfson College, Oxford, 2013
• ‘Travelling Words: Word and Image in Marcel Broodthaers’s postcard projects’, invited speaker at Postcards colloquium, INHA and Centre André Chastel, University of Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, 2013
• ‘Investigating the unknown: crossing borders in contemporary art’ at Migration, Memory and Place, Danish Network for Cultural Memory Studies & Network for Migration and Culture, University of Copenhagen, 2012
• Chair of discussion of Family Ties: Tracing Ancestral Homelands, new film works by Suze Adams and Lizzie Thynne, Richmond, AmericanInternationalUniversity in London, 2012
• ‘Monuments as visual memory’, invited speaker at the II International Seminar on Critical Landscapes. Conversations on Aesthetics, Politics and Public Sphere, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, 2012
• Chair of Working with Traces, Memory and Archives, Julia Winckler exhibition, Austrian Cultural Forum, London, 2012
• ‘Representations of the Family in Contemporary Photography’, at Family Ties: Recollection and Representation, Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory at the IGRS, London, 2012
• Session chair of ‘Trauma: War and Exile’ at Family Ties: Recollection and Representation, Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory at the IGRS, London, 2012
• ‘Travelling Words’ at Picture this: postcards and letters beyond text, University of Sussex, 2011
• ‘Visual lives: The public and private spaces of photographs in the Arnold Daghani Collection’, at Life Writing and Intimate Publics, Seventh Biennial International Auto/Biography Association Conference (IABA), University of Sussex, 2011
• ‘Textual Evidence: Intention and Insincerity in the Writings of Marcel Broodthaers’, at Artists’ Writings 1850 – Present, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2009
• Session chair of ‘Writing as Art’ at Artists’ Writings 1850 – Present, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2009
• ‘Art and Place: Crossing Borders in the Work of Perejaume’ in session on Dis-Locations: Movements and Migrations at the Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, London, 2008

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Association internationale des critiques d'art (AICA) – by selection
• Association of Art Historians (AAH)

• Since 2023, Course Leader BA Art History
• 2021-3, Course Leader BA Liberal Arts
• 2022, Erasmus+ Staff Teaching Mobility Grant to Nebrija University, Madrid 
• Since 2004, Senior Lecturer

I have designed, co-designed and taught numerous art history modules on the BA Liberal Arts and the BA Art History including ‘Art Now’, ‘Situating Art’, ‘Photography’, ‘The Art Business’, 'Writing about art', ‘Twentieth Century Modernisms’, ‘Curating’, 'Cultural Industries', ‘World Arts’, ‘Asian Art’, ‘Creative Strategies’, ‘Nineteenth Century Art’, ‘History of Modern Art’, ‘British Art: Nation and Representation’ and ‘Art Appreciation’. All courses include study visits to London galleries and to specialist resources.
 

• PhD supervision: First Supervisor for Nellie Hayes, ‘Isaac Grünewald: Heritage and Legacy in the Swedish Avant-Garde’ (completed 2022)
• Doctoral Dissertation Examiner: Francis Blore, Practice-based PhD, University of Northampton (internal examiner, forthcoming)
• Teiji Lewis Wallace, ‘The Politics of Home/Land: Geographies of Trauma within a Canadian Family Farm and Photographic Archive’, Glasgow School of Art (external examiner, January 2022)

• Led session on ‘Academic Journals’, Learning and Teaching Conference, Regent’s University London (2021)
• Chair Global Leaders series on ‘The Future of Collecting: Two Entrepreneurs from the Art World’, with speakers Lise Arlot and Tom Best (October 2020)
• Chair sessions online for the Supervisors’ Forum on ‘How have faculty been supervising PhD students without face to face contact?’ (June 2020); ‘Supervising in a pandemic’ (December 2020); ‘Post-graduate Research Survey Results’ (March 2021); ‘Discussion of the current UKCGE survey’ (July 2021)
• Article on ‘Online experiences: the art world responds to COVID-19’ for Regent’s Review, online journal (May 2020)
• Introduction to and co-ordination of student exhibition reviews in The Scribe, Regent’s journal (2020 and ongoing)
• Cross-disciplinary seminar (organiser) in collaboration with the International Open Seminars Series: Soft Power seminar with speaker Melissa Nisbett, ‘Soft Power in the current climate’ (October 2019); The Destruction of Memory seminar, Screening and Q&A with film director Tim Slade (October 2018)
• Seminar (organiser): The Representation of Memory, for PhD and post-docs, Regent’s University London (The Representation of Memory, May 2018; Research Methods, July 2018; After 2001, October 2018; Activating Archives, June 2019, and ongoing)
• Led session on ‘Tactile Learning’, Teaching and Learning Conference, Regent’s University London (2018)
• Co-ordinated publication of student exhibition reviews in After Nyne journal (2017 and 2018)
• Completed the Supervisor Development Programme, Regent’s University London (University of Northampton) (2017)
• Became a HEA Fellow, Regent’s University London (2016)
• Co-organised with Mark Allinson ‘Assessing Visual Work’ workshop for HASS academics, Regent’s University London (2014)
• I have completed the following workshops at Regent’s University London:
  • Dealing with students who are a cause for concern (2017)
  • ‘Good Practice in Assessment: workshop for HASS academics’ (2014)
  • ‘An inclusive approach: Considerations when teaching students with dyslexia’ (2013)
  • ‘Assessment Methods’ (2013)