Amanda will be presenting a paper entitled "Dirty Father Thames" and the Microscopic Grotesque: Cholera and Water after John Snow at the Northern Nineteenth-Century Network's Water Conference at Leeds Trinity University next month.

We are pleased to announce that Carlo Avilio has passed his viva voce examination for his dissertation on the subject of Naturalism and the Picaresque in Jusepe de Ribera's Work supervised by Dr Lorenzo Pericolo. The photograph shows Carlo with internal examiner Professor Michael Hatt.

Is this the world's most macabre art gallery?

History of Art Department research student Carlo Avilio is quoted in an online article about the series of frescoes in the catacombs of San Gaudioso in Naples. The article concerns in particular the costumed skeletons which were painted around the skulls of interred nobles embedded in the walls.

Splendour! Art in Living Craftsmanship.

This exhibition celebrated the eightieth anniversary of the Georgian Group. Founded in 1937, the Group is a national charity dedicated to preserving Georgian buildings, gardens and landscapes between 1700-1840 in England and Wales. The exhibition featured over forty artists, craftsmen and architects who work in the Georgian classical tradition. Works on display included examples of pietra dure, scagliola, coade stone, stucco work, wood and stone carving, painted wallpapers and architects drawings.

The catalogue was edited by History of Art PhD student Adam Busiakiewicz, who wrote all of the catalogue entries and contributed an essay to the publication.

Adam is especially interested in the history and former collection of the Earls of Warwick and their ancestral home Warwick Castle. His research focuses on the life of Anne Greville, 4^th Countess of Warwick, who presided over the restoration of the castle in the late nineteenth century.

History of Art PhD student Carlo Avilio recently delivered his paper Portents of Nature: Jusepe de Ribera and the Bearded Woman at the conference Laboratorium Neapel. Plurale Stilbildung, Künstlerkonkurrenz und Wirkungsästhetik in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei. The conference was held at Museum Wiesbaden to coincide with the major exhibition Caravaggio’s Heirs. Baroque in Naples.

The photograph shows Carlo with Elisabeth Oy-Marra, professor in history of art at Mainz University, co-organizer of the exhibition and conference.

Staff and students were recently offered an opportunity to introduce their teaching and research to a wider audience by contributing labels for works of art in the new Oculus building. Charlotte has selected the screen print Constable Willow 2 by Andrew Carter, drawing a comparison between the approach of Leon Underwood, the subject of her research, and that of Carter, mentioning in particular, Underwood’s work on trees while serving with Royal Engineers Camouflage Division during World War One.

Recent PhD graduate and WATE award winner Ann Haughton has an article in the latest edition of Exchanges: the Warwick Research Journal. The article, 'Myths of Male Same-Sex Love in the Art of the Italian Renaissance', can be read online in the Exchanges journal.

Reference: Exchanges: the Warwick Research Journal, [S.l.], v. 3, n. 1, p. 65-95, sep. 2015. ISSN 2053-9665.

Congratulations to Matteo Carpiniello, Fabio Franz and Delia Moldovan on securing CADRE funding for their PhD studies.

The Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence for Postgraduate Research students (WATE PGR) give students and staff the opportunity to celebrate excellent teaching by postgraduate research students. The award recognises teachers who have motivated, inspired and engaged their students, and created a supportive learning environment.

Ann has made an exceptional impact on our students’ learning experience at first and second year level... she excels in transforming the tough and the dull in academia into the understandable and the enjoyable. As the most recent comments from first-year evaluations reveal, she inspires, encourages, and builds student confidence particularly in seminars.

Closing date: 1st May 2015.

Congratulations to Philip Zidarov, an MA student in the department, who has won a scholarship from the Cini Foundation in Venice to pursue research at the Vittore Branca International Center for Studies of Italian Culture. Philip’s project, Visual Documents of Two Volcanic Eruptions: The Journeys of Images, examines the use and re-use of images of Etna and Vesuvius by artists, engravers, and printers through the 17th and 18th centuries.

History of Art PhD student, Stefano Colombo, has been awarded a Royal Historical Society conference travel grant. The grant will allow him to deliver a presentation at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Berlin, 26-28 March 2015. The title of the presentation is “The Commemorative Monument of the Fini Family in San Moisè: Strategies of Self-Promotion and Social Affirmation in Seventeenth-Century Venice".