Research areas
I am a historian of modern art and theory. Much of my research focuses on issues around the interpretation of art (formalism, style, ‘close looking’, historical method, ‘art writing’ and historical writing, relations between art history and aesthetics, and publication history). Two books, described in more detail below, have brought some of these issues together: Interpreting Art, and Art and Form. Other artists, movements, and related areas of particular interest include David Hockney (the subject of a current book project), Gluck, Walter Sickert, Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury Group, modernist 'realism' and 'naturalism', 'nature' and the 'handmade' in modern art, and post-impressionism (especially in its globalising post-1910 form).
(UCL Press, 2022), gives a new take on the practice of art history. There are many 'theories and methods' books, histories of art writing, and 'how to look' guides, but these tend to be divided up according to standard historical moments or familiar 'methods'. Interpreting Art instead examines general features of interpretation in the history of art across times, places, and schools of thought. The book is available . (Hard copies are also available from the UCL site and in North America from the ).
Related essays have discussed aspects of the practical, theoretical, and material conditions of art writing in more detail:
- Description and close looking (, Art History, 2017)
- The role of aesthetics and the aesthetic (, New Literary History, 2017)
- The history and practice of peer review in art history and the humanities ('', Burlington Magazine, 2019)
- Perceptual plasticity (‘On Perception’ (co-authored with Bence Nanay), in A Companion to Arthur C. Danto, 2022)
(Penn State University Press, 2019), gives a historical account of the central place of form and formalism in modernist culture. Recovering formalism’s emphasis on contact and communication – as opposed to ‘art for art’s sake’ escapism - the book explores connections to the histories of connoisseurship, art criticism, aesthetics, art education, design theory, colonial and anti-colonial art theory, and (through to the present) ‘global modernism’. The introduction (uncorrected proof) can be read .
Form and post-impressionism have also been discussed in:
- , Art History, 2023
- ‘Formalism: Problematic, Inevitable, Post’, in The Blackwell Companion to the Theories and Methods of Art History (forthcoming, 2023)
- , Nonsite, 2017
- '"’,&²Ô²ú²õ±è;Art History, 2014
At 58³Ô¹Ï I teach courses on art writing, on approaches to the history and theory of art, on modern art in Britain, and on global modernism (a kind of critical survey course of formerly non-canonical modernisms around the world). Beyond 58³Ô¹Ï I have been an editorial board member of (2017-2024) and a member of the Executive Steering Committee of the British Association for (2016-19).
PhD supervision
- Anne Renahan
Selected publications
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Open access
Brittenham, C., Lippit, Y., Rose, S., Strother, Z. S. & Gomez, É. (Translator), 1 Jun 2023, In: Perspective: actualité en histoire de l’art. 2023, 1, p. 21-50
Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate
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Rose, S., 4 May 2023, London Review of Books, 45, 9.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
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Open access
Rose, S., 20 Sept 2022, In: Art History. 45, 3, p. 546-569 24 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Rose, S., 28 Apr 2022, Walter Sickert. Chambers, E. (ed.). London: Tate Publishing
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
Rose, S., 10 Feb 2022, London: UCL Press. 124 p. (Spotlights)
Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Rose, S. & Nanay, B., 18 Apr 2022, A companion to Arthur C. Danto. Gilmore, J. & Goehr, L. (eds.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 93-102 10 p. (Blackwell companions to philosophy; vol. 77).
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Rose, S., 2019, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. 208 p. (Refiguring modernism; vol. 28)
Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
Rose, S., 1 Aug 2019, In: Burlington Magazine. 161, 1397
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Rose, S., 5 Jul 2017, In: New Literary History. 48, 2, p. 223-244
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Rose, S., Feb 2017, In: Art History. 40, 1, p. 156-177 156.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review