Faculty academics and doctoral students at Art Historians' conference

Curatorial Director Dr Catherine Moriarty and Archivist Sue Breakell are speaking at the annual conference of the Association of Art Historians, being held at the University of Reading from 11-13 April. Both will draw on the Design Archives collections, those of the Council of Industrial Design and the artist and illustrator Barbara Jones.

Breakell’s paper ‘The taste of everyday things: Kenneth Clark’s agenda for design around the Second World War’, is part of a wider project exploring this under-researched aspect of Clark’s career. It forms part of a session on ‘Design Objects and the Museum’, convened by Brighton's AHRC collaborative doctoral candidates Liz Farrelly and Joanna Weddell, which addresses the place of contemporary design objects within the discipline of art history.

Moriarty’s paper, ‘The museum eye must be abandoned: figureheads as popular art’, draws on her research for the current exhibition ‘Black Eyes and Lemonade’ at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, open until 1 September. It forms part of the session 'Sculpture and the sea: figureheads, ship decoration and maritime sculpture'.

Image shows 'Bachelor Bed-sitting room'. Detail from exhibition catalogue for 'Design At Home' (1945), organised by CEMA. Design Council Archive.