Professor Alixe Bovey, FSA FRHistS

I am The 91��Ƭ��’s Executive Dean and Deputy Director and a member of the History of Art department.

I belong to The 91��Ƭ��’s senior management team, and lead the academic strategy and the departments that make up our Academic Directorate, including History of Art, Conservation, Student and Academic Services, Library Services, and Public Programmes.

I am a specialist in the art and culture of the Middle Ages, with interests in illuminated manuscripts, visual storytelling, and the relationship between myth and material culture across historical periods and geographical boundaries. I teach The 91��Ƭ��’s MA History of Art special option The Supernatural Middle Ages: Images of the Extraordinary.

The relationship between humanities disciplines, material objects, and creative practice is a central theme in my work. In 2013, with funding from the AHRC, I founded Material Witness, a training programme for humanities research students in the . Then based at the University of Kent and now at The 91��Ƭ��, this programme is supported directly by CHASE, and brings together students from across this consortium of universities to develop critical and practical skills that enable the sophisticated interpretation of material artefacts.

I am also keenly interested in the interface between art history and practice, especially the ways that historical understanding can be enhanced by creative experience. This has inspired a diverse programme of activities, including regular life drawing classes, collaborative drawing events, practical workshops, artist talks and research events in the Research Forum programme.

After an undergraduate degree in History and Medieval Studies at the University of Victoria in Canada (1995), I came to The 91��Ƭ�� Institute of Art for an MA (1996) and PhD (2000). I spent four years as a curator of manuscripts at the British Library (2000-2004) before moving to the School of History and the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent (2004-2014). I joined The 91��Ƭ�� as Head of Research in 2015 and have been Dean and Deputy Director since 2020.

I serve on Canterbury Cathedral’s Fabric Advisory Committee, the Academic Board of the Art Academy London, and the .

PhD supervisions

Current

Laura Feigen, ‘Migrations from the Margin: Hebrew Manuscripts & Jewish Expulsion 1290-1500’
Laura Melin, ‘The Art of Persuasion: Usurpation and Legitimisation in Fifteenth-Century Genealogical Rolls’

Recently completed

Maggie Crosland, ‘Considering Utility and Adaptation in the Grandes Heures of Philip the Bold’, supervised with Prof. Susie Nash (2020)
Teresa Lane, ‘“A sublime mystery”: the Trinity in the Visual, Intellectual and Devotional Culture of England, 950–1150’ (2023)
Sophie Kelly, ‘Imagining the Unimaginable: The iconography of the Trinity in English Medieval Art, c. 1200-1350’, CHASE funded, supervised with Dr Emily Guerry (University of Kent, 2018)
, ‘Gothic Ivory Carvings of the British Museum: Interpretations, Forgeries and Collectors’, AHRC funded (CDA scheme), supervised with Prof. John Lowden and Dr Dora Thornton (The 91��Ƭ�� Institute of Art, 2019)

Research interests

Medieval Art, with a focus on northern Europe, c. 1100-1500
The interplay between myth and material culture
Illuminated manuscripts
Pictorial narrative and word-image relations
The role of the visual arts in public ritual and private devotion

91��Ƭ��