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Professor Anthony Geraghty

Profile

Biography

BA (Birmingham), MA (Courtauld Institute), PhD (Cantab)

Anthony Geraghty is Professor of the History of Art.

He is an architectural historian, with a specialist interest in the early modern period in England.  

He was Chairman of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain from 2015-18, and a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, Michaelmas term, 2018.

He joined the Department in 2002, having previously taught at the Glasgow School of Art in 1998-2002.

Departmental roles

Chair of Graduate Studies

Research

Overview

I first studied the history of architecture at the University of Birmingham (1990-93) and the Courtauld Institute of Art (1993-94). I then wrote a PhD at Cambridge on the rebuilding of the City Churches after the Great Fire of London.  In 2007 I published the Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren at All Souls College, Oxford (Lund Humphries, 2007), which describes one of the key sources of British architectural history. The book shows how Wren went about designing one the largest cathedral in Europe, over fifty parish churches, numerous royal buildings, and much else besides. It also gives the first detailed account of Wren’ s office practice.

My recent work explores how architecture was conceived and understood in Renaissance and Baroque England (its intellectual history) with a view to better understanding how it was deployed and received (its cultural history). These interests informed my second book,  The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Learning in Seventeenth-Century Oxford (Yale University Press, 2013), which won the Alice Davies Hitchcock Medallion (2014), awarded annually by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain for the best book on architectural history. The research for this book was funded by the British Academy.

I have also published on the historiography of British architectural history (including studies of John Summerson and Howard Colvin), and on the French architect and collector Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-93).

Projects

I am currently writing two short books: one on the exiled Empress Eugénie and the juxtaposition of history and historicism at the end of the nineteenth century, due for publication in 2020; and one on the English Baroque and ideas of architectural form, which I hope to publish by 2025 at the latest.

Research group(s)

Grants

Large grants & research awards include:

  • 2015: The Rothschild Foundation
  • 2008: British Academy Research Development Award towards my book, The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Society in Early Modern Oxford.
  • 2005: English Heritage, towards two PhD studentships.
  • 2000-2004: Various research grants from English Heritage, Paul Mellon Centre, AHRC, and the British Academy towards The Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren.

Supervision

In Progress

  • Elizabeth Deans, 'Artefacts of Architectural Education and Experience: The Role of 18th-century British Design Albums'
  • Dawn Faizey Webster, 'To what extent did the architecture of the early modern grammar school affect, impede or complexify its formal educational and broader social learning functions?'
  • Katharine (Kate) Bould, 'The architectural and social history of Heslington Hall'
  • Mark Kirby, 'Furnishing Sir Christopher Wren's Churches: Anglican Identity in Late Seventeenth Century London'
  • Alexander Echlin, The Architecture of Lord Burlington reconsidered (October 2018-)
  • Charlotte Davis, Rediscovering the British Sculptor, c.1660-1715 (October 2018-; funded by the AHRC)
 

Awarded

  • Evan McWilliams, 'The English Use: Liturgy and the Arts in the Church of England 1895-1965'
  • Ann-Marie Akehurst, 'Architecture and Philanthropy: Building Hospitals in Eighteenth-Century York (Jointly supervised with Professor Mark Hallett).
  • James Jago, 'Court, Capital, Province: The Reassessment and Exemplars of Private Religious Space in Early Modern England, 1600-1660' (AHRC funded).
  • James Legard, 'Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace, and the Meanings of Baroque Architecture'
  • Joanne O'Hara, 'Colen Campbell and the Preparatory drawings for Vitruvius Britannicus' (funded by English Heritage and the Society of Architectural Historians (GB)).
  • Marie Prior, 'Style, Perception and Identity: The Gothic Bridge in London and York, 1740 - 1881' (AHRC funded)
  • Frances Sands, 'Nostell Priory: History of a House, 1730-85' (funded by the Society of Architectural Historians (GB)).
  • Matthew Walker, 'Architectus Ingenio: Robert Hooke, the Early Royal Society and the Practices of Architecture ' (funded by English Heritage and the Society of Architectural Historians (GB)).

 

Publications

Selected publications

  • ‘Wren and the English Baroque’, in Tabitha Barber, ed., British Baroque: Power and Illusion (London: Tate Publication, 2020 [exhibition catalogue]), pp. 77-87.
  • ‘Rebuilding the City Churches after the Great Fire of London: The Case of All Hallows the Great, Thames Street’, co-authored with Mark Kirby, in Paul Barnwell, ed., Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland, 1550-1689 (Stanford: Shaun Tyas, 2020). pp. 95-12.
  • ‘Kerry Downes (1930-2019)', The Burlington Magazine, 161 (December 2019), pp. 1075-76.
  • ‘Castle Howard and the Interpretation of English Baroque Architecture’, in Mark Hallett, Nigel Llewellyn, and Martin Myrone, eds, Court Country City: British Art and Architecture, 1660-1735 (Studies in British Art, 24), The Yale Center for British Art/The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, pp. 127-49.

  • The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Learning in Seventeenth-Century Oxford (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013)
  • 'After Colvin's Canterbury Quadrangle' in Airs and Whyte, eds., Architectural History after Colvin (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013), pp. 42-57.
  • 'Nicholas Hawksmoor's Drawing technique of the 1690s and John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding', in Helen Hills, (ed.) Rethinking the Baroque (Aldershot, 2011), pp. 125-41.
  • 'The "dissociation of sensibility" and the "tyranny of intellect": T.S. Eliot, John Summerson and Christopher Wren', in Salmon, F. (ed.) The Persistence of the Classical: Essays on Architecture Presented to David Watkin (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2008), pp. 26-39. 
  • 'Sir Howard Colvin' (obituary), The Burlington Magazine, 150, September 2008, pp.613-14

  • The Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren at All Souls College, Oxford: A Complete Catalogue (London: Lund Humphries, 2007).
  • 'Robert Hooke's Collection of Architectural Books and Prints', in Architectural History, 47 (2004), pp. 113-25.
  • 'Wren's preliminary design for the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford', in Architectural History, 45 (2002), pp. 275-288. 
  • 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough: A Gothic Mausoleum for Napoleon III', Apollo, CXLIII (January 1996), pp. 9-12. Reprinted (in French) in L'Architecture Normande en Europe: Identités et Échanges, ed. by Martin Kew Meade, Marseille 2002. 
  • 'Edward Woodroofe: Sir Christopher Wren's first draughtsman', in The Burlington Magazine, CXLIII (August 2001), pp. 474-9. 
  • 'Nicholas Hawksmoor and the Wren City Church Steeples', in The Georgian Group Journal, 10 (2000), pp. 1-14. 
  • 'Introducing Thomas Laine: Draughtsman to Sir Christopher Wren', in Architectural History, 42 (1999), pp. 240-5.

Teaching

Undergraduate

  • Architecture and Politics in Stuart England
  • Classical Architecture in France, 1600-1750
  • Castle Howard: Architecture, Landscape, Gardens
  • The English Country House

Postgraduate

  • Sir John Vanbrugh and Friends: English Baroque Architecture
  • Wren

Other teaching

Departmental and University Administration

2015-18

Director of York Art History Collaborations

2013-14

Chair of the Board of Studies (Director of Teaching Programmes, Department of History of Art)

2013-14 Senior Management Team, member
2013-14 Chair, Teaching Committee
2014 Acting Director of PhD Programme (summer term)
2013 REF 2014 Working Party
2011-13 Research Committee, member
2011-13 Graduate Committee, member
2011-13 Director of PhD Programme
2010-13 Director of Research School in Architectural History and Theory
2008-10 Period of dedicated research, funded by a British Academy Research Development Award and University of York Anniversary Lectureship
2006-08 Chair of the Board of Studies
2006-08 Co-chair, modularisation working group
2004-06 Careers Officer
2003-04 Research Seminar Convenor
2002-04 Open Day Officer

External activities

Memberships

  • Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, Michaelmas Term (2018)
  • Chairman, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (2015-2018)
  • Member of Advisory Council, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2014-18)
  • Academic Visitor, Lincoln College, Oxford (2009)

Invited talks and conferences

Papers/Public Lectures (select)

Feb 2020
Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, research seminar: 'Wren, Beauty, and Trinity College Library, Cambridge’
June 2019
In conversation with Robin Darwell-Smith at the Sheldonian Theatre, 9 June 2019, to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Theatre’s opening: ‘Wren and Handel at the Sheldonian: Oxford and the Wider World'
Nov 2018
Oxford Architectural History Seminar: ‘History, Historiography, Historicism: The Imperial Mausoleum at Farnborough Abbey’
Oct 2018
Visiting Fellows’ Colloquiam, All Souls College, Oxford: ‘The English Baroque Revisited’
March 2018
All Souls College, Oxford, Eighteenth-Century Seminar
‘‘Gothick’ and ‘solid’: Hawksmoor's work at All Souls reconsidered’
Nov 2017
Northern Architectural History Society, Newcastle University
‘Sir Christopher Wren and architectural drawing'
March 2017
Department of History, University of Kent, Research Seminar
‘Art, Architecture, Exile: the Empress Eugénie in Farnborough, 1880-1920
March 2017 Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, Architectural History and Theory Seminar. ‘Architecture about Architecture: Castle Howard and the English Baroque Architecture'
Dec 2016
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, Research Seminar, ‘The Empress Eugénie in Exile: Collecting and Display at Farnborough Hill, 1880-1920’
Nov 2016 Department of History of Art, University of Birmingham, Research Seminar, 'Art, Architecture, Exile: The Empress Eugénie in Farnborough, 1880-1920'
May 2016 Centre for Anglophone Studies, Aix-Marseille University. Aix-en-Provence, ‘Stones under pressure: Castle Howard and the nature of English baroque architecture'
Nov 2015
Department of History of Art, University of Oxford, Research Seminar, ‘Architecture about Architecture: Castle Howard and the English Baroque’
June 2015 Gresham College, London/City of London Festival
'Sir Christopher Wren and the Rebuilding of the City Churches after the Great Fire of London
March 2015

Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge:
Annual Building History Lecture: ‘Architecture and History at Castle Howard’

March 2015

The Oxford Literary Festival
‘The Sheldonian Theatre: Architecture and Learning in Seventeenth-Century Oxford’

Dec 2014 Edgar Wind Society for Art History, University of Oxford
In conversation Dr Walker Matthew at the Sheldonian Theatre
Dec 2011 Courtauld Institute of Art, London Seminar for Early Modern Visual Studies
‘The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford and Contemporary Debates about Learning'
July 2009

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
'Drawing as mathematical practice'

May 2009 All Souls College, Oxford: Chichele Lecture
'Christopher Wren and the Restoration'
Nov 2007 St John's College, Oxford: Oxford Architectural History Seminar,
'"The Tyranny of the Intellect": Christopher Wren, T.S. Eliot and John Summerson’
May 2004 St John's College, Oxford: Oxford Architectural History Seminar
‘Wren, Restoration Oxford, and the Sheldonian Theatre’
Feb 2004 The Victorian Society, London
‘H.A.G.W. Destailleur in England’
May 2002 University of Glasgow, Department of History of Art
'Wren's Preliminary Design for the Sheldonian Theatre'
Nov 1998 Courtauld Institute of Art, London, Architecture Seminar
'Sir Christopher Wren and Architectural Drawing'
Oct 1996 University of Cambridge, Department of History of Art
'Sir Christopher Wren and the City Church Office'

 

Conference Papers (select)

Nov 2018

Sir Richard Wallace and His Age: Connoisseurs, Collectors & Philanthropists', The Wallace Collection, London, 15-16 November 2018: ‘An Imperial Collection in Exile: The Empress Eugénie in Farnborough, 1880-1920'.
May 2018 Words/Works/Walls: Conceptual Architectures in Visual Culture
(Ertegun House for the Humanities, University of Oxford)
'"The Beauty and Strength of the Building”: The Representation of the Masonry Wall at Castle Howard'
May 2018 English Architecture 1690-1750: to be or not to be Palladian (Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, 11-13 May)
'Form and Idea: ‘baroque’ and ‘Palladianism’ at Castle Howard'
Sept 2016

The Northern European Country House (Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies/Department of Archaeology, University of York)
‘Castle Howard as Castle: the depiction of firmitasin English Baroque architecture’

April 2016

Architectural Drawings Symposium 2016 (Drawing Matter Trust/Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
‘Hawksmoor’s drawings for Castle Howard'

March 2015 Animating the Eighteenth-Century Country House (National Gallery, London; Birkbeck College, London, and the Paul Mellon Centre, London)
‘Experiencing Castle Howard’.
Sept 2013 British Art 1660-1735: Close Readings II (Paul Mellon Centre, London)
‘Castle Howard and the meaning of English Baroque architecture’
May 2011 British Art 1660-1735: Close Readings I (Tate Britain, London)
'Robert Streater at the Sheldonian'
May 2011 Architectural History after Colvin (Annual Symposium of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, St John's College, Oxford)
'History and Architectural History: Colvin's Canterbury Quadrangle'
July 2010 Society for Renaissance Studies, 4th Biannual Conference, York
Panel: The Built Frontispiece. 'The Built Frontispiece in Caroline Oxford'
Nov 2006 Histories of British Architecture: Where Next? (The Yale Center for British Art, US). 'Drawing as evidence'
July 2006 Rethinking the Baroque (Centre for Renaissaince and Early Modern Studies, University of York)
‘Nicholas Hawksmoor; A Baroque Draughtsman?’
June 2004 John Summerson and Henry Russell Hitchcock: A Centenary Conference
(Paul Mellon Centre, London). ‘Summerson on Wren’
Jan 2004 Dutch Architectural Interchange (The Georgian Group, London)
‘William de Keyser and Wren’s St Mary-le-Bow’
April 2001 L’Architecture Normande en Europe: Identités et Echanges (University of Caen, France)
‘L’abbaye Saint-Michel, Farnborough: un mausolée gothique pour Napoléon III’
May 2001 Architectural Drawing (Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford)
‘Wren’s designs for Whitehall Palace’
Oct 2001  International conference on architectural drawing (Netherlands Architectural Institute, Rotterdam)
'Architectural Drawing in early modern England'
March 2000 The Dome (The Annual Symposium of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, St John's College, Oxford)
'Sir Christopher Wren and the Dome of St Paul's'

Media coverage

  • The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4: Radio Interview on Sir Christopher Wren and the Rebuilding of the City of London churches after the Great Fire of London (27 June 2015)

Contact details

Anthony Geraghty
Professor
Department of History of Art
Room V/N/238

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