Events
PhD opportunity: Dovecot Studios andTapestry as Modern Art
This three-year PhD research project will investigate the interactions between the celebrated Dovecot Studios and the important artists, Scottish, British and international, with whom they have collaborated on the design and making of major tapestries, many commissioned for public spaces. A key focus will be the major 2012 centenary exhibition of the Dovecot showing in Edinburgh and elsewhere, which is being guest curated by Dr Elizabeth Cumming. The successful applicant will work with Dr Cumming and Dovecot staff on the organisation of the show, acquiring valuable research and vocational skills. They will also develop a particular aspect of the historical narrative (e.g. an artist, period, theme) for detailed investigation in their eventual PhD dissertation. The project relates broadly to the history of the fine and
decorative arts in the modern period, and specifically to the singular history of the Dovecot Studios, with its distinctive commitment to work at the intersection of art and craft.
The first supervisor will be Martin Hammer, who has wide-ranging expertise in British art of the twentieth-century, and particular knowledge of the work of Graham
Sutherland, who did several commissions for Dovecot Studios. The second supervisor will be Dr Jessica Hemmings at the Edinburgh College of Art, who will provide expertise from a contemporary perspective in the areas of textile art and narrative. The other key figure in the supervision process will be Dr Elizabeth Cumming, a
distinguished independent scholar of Scottish visual culture since 1850 and the Arts and Crafts movement, Honorary Fellow in History of Art, and principal curator of the 2012 show.