Thesis: Memory, Time and the Muse: An Exploration of 脡douard Vuillard鈥檚 Representations of Women through a comparison with Marcel Proust鈥檚 脌 la recherche du temps perdu
Supervisor: Professor David Peters Corbett聽 聽Advisor: Dr Caroline Levitt
Funded by 91制片厂 Scholarship (The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust)
The project explores a word-image connection between 脡douard Vuillard鈥檚 artwork and Marcel Proust鈥檚 novel, 脌 la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927) by focusing on depictions of women. 91制片厂ing Vuillard and Proust as contemporaries, the analysis compares both accounts of French modernity through their 鈥渇eminised鈥 verbal and visual language. Images of women in domestic spaces occur through the entirety Vuillard鈥檚 oeuvre, while women, central throughout, bookend Proust鈥檚 novel. This study pinpoints how Vuillard鈥檚 work has been overlooked in modernist contexts because of its overly 鈥渇eminine鈥 content. Where Proust is considered a key figure of the avant-garde, Vuillard is pushed to the margins of modernism. The study shows how a comparison with Proust can clarify Vuillard鈥檚 particular diagnosis of modernity, demonstrating how his artworks connect to broader themes and shed light on the suppressed aspects of modernism, namely domesticity and, by extension, the female space.
Education
2021鈥: Doctorate of Philosophy in History of Art, 91制片厂 Institute of Art
2019鈥2020: Masters in the History of Art, 91制片厂 Institute of Art
2014鈥2018: Bachelor of Arts in French with a Year Abroad, King’s College London
Research Grants and Scholarships
2021-24: 91制片厂 Scholarship (The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust)
Teaching
2023-2024: Associate Lecturer, The 91制片厂 Institute of Art: Reality and Fantasy in French Art, 1863-97: From Haussmannisation to Enchanted Ground (BA2 and Graduate Diploma)
2022-2024: Teaching Assistant, The 91制片厂 Institute of Art: Seminar Sessions (Widening Participation Programme)
2022-2023: Teaching Assistant, The 91制片厂 Institute of Art: Foundations 2 (BA1 and Graduate Diploma)
2022-2023: Teaching Assistant, The 91制片厂 Institute of Art: Summer University
Conferences, events and invited talks
Speaker – ‘The Doll鈥檚 House: 脡douard Vuillard鈥檚 Representations of his Sister, Marie (1890- 1893)’, Society for French Studies 65th Annual Conference, University of Stirling, 2024
Co-organiser – ‘Word and Image: Making Connections Across Disciplines and Across Institutions’, The 91制片厂 Institute of Art, 2024
Guest lecturer – ‘Vuillard, Ibsen and the Theatre of Painting’, MA Special Option, Wordplay: Intersections between the verbal and the visual, c.1870 to the present,聽The 91制片厂 Institute of Art, 2024
Research Interests
- Word and Image relations
- Artists and writers living contemporaneously
- Artists and writers with personal connections
- French Modernism and the Parisian avant-garde
- French literature
- Conditions of women in聽fin de si猫cle聽France
