C. Oliver O鈥橠onnell is a historian of modern art and intellectual history with a particular focus on US-American traditions of modernity. In addition to teaching at the 91制片厂, he is an Associate Fellow at the Warburg Institute, University of London, where he has been based since 2018. He completed his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2016, and, prior to coming to London, was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz 鈥 Max-Planck-Institut.
Oliver鈥檚 research focuses on issues of transmission and exchange between art history and intellectual history broadly construed. His first book, developed from his PhD thesis, exemplifies this interest and was awarded the 2019 Willibald Sauerl盲ndler Prize from the Zentralinstitut f眉r Kunstgeschichte in Munich. The book charts how the art historian Meyer Schapiro, who was close friends with many of the leading abstract expressionists, worked from the nexus of artistic and intellectual practice to confront some of the 20th century鈥檚 most abiding questions.
Building on this research, Oliver鈥檚 current work concerns the Ashcan school of painting, specifically in relation to the growing geo-political power of the United States between 1898 and the First World War.聽 He is also a Research Notes Editor of
Teaching
- BA1 – Possibilities of Portraiture, 2023-24
- BA2 – Ways of Seeing, 2023-24
- BA2 – Art and Cold War Politics, 2023
- MA 鈥撀Beyond Abstract Expressionism, 2020-22.
- BA2 鈥 Constellations course, 鈥淐old War Cultures鈥, 2019-20.
Education
- PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Research interests
- US-American modernity
- issues of transmission and exchange between art history and intellectual history.
Recent publications (selection)
Monographs
- Meyer Schapiro鈥檚 Critical Debates: Art Through a Modern American Mind,聽The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019.
Edited Volumes
- Art History Before English: Negotiating a European Lingua Franca from Vasari to the Present, edited by Robert Brennan, C. Oliver O鈥橠onnell, Marco Mascolo, and Alessandro Nova (Officina Libraria, Milan, 2022)
Articles
- 鈥楶eirce, Bierstadt, and the Topographic Imagination in 19th-century America鈥,聽The Art Bulletin (June 2021).
- 鈥楾wo Modes of Mid-Century Iconology鈥,聽History of Humanities聽vol.3, no.1, Spring 2018.
- 鈥楻evisiting David Summers鈥檚聽Real Spaces: a neo-pragmatist interpretation鈥,聽World Art聽vol.8, no.1, January 2018.
- 鈥楤erensonian Formalism and Pragmatist Perception鈥,聽Zeitschrift f眉r 脛sthetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft聽vol.62, no.2, 2017.
- 鈥楧epicting Berkeleyan Idealism: a study of two portraits by John Smibert鈥,聽Word & Image聽vol.33, no.1, March 2017.
- 鈥楻eading Allan Marquand鈥檚 鈥淥n Scientific Method in the 91制片厂 of Art鈥濃,聽European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy聽vol.8, no.2, December 2016.
- 鈥楳eyer Schapiro, Abstract Expressionism, and the Paradox of Freedom in Art Historical Description鈥,聽Tate Papers聽no.26 (Autumn 2016).
Book Chapters
- 鈥楳eyer Schapiro and Claude L茅vi-Strauss: Structuralist Arguments Among Abstract Paintings鈥, in聽Art History Before English, edited by Robert Brennan, Alessandro Nova, Marco Mascolo, and C. Oliver O鈥橠onnell, Officina Libraria, 2022.
- 鈥楨rwin Panofsky鈥檚 neo-Kantian Humanism and the purported relation between Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism鈥, in聽Postwar Scholarship and the 91制片厂 of the Middle Ages, edited by B. Salzman and R. D. Perry, Cambridge University Press, 2022.
- 鈥楢n Englishness for English Art in the 21st聽Century鈥, in聽Itinerant Knowledge: Fritz Saxl, Rudolf Wittkower, and a British Art History, edited by Johannes von M眉ller, Joanne Anderson, and Mick Finch, Klinger Verlag, 2019.
