Gavin Parkinson

Gavin Parkinson was a BA student in Manchester, then completed his MA at The Courtauld in 1997, followed by a PhD in 2000. After lecturing at Birkbeck College and the University of Oxford he joined The Courtauld teaching staff as a Lecturer in 2008 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2014.

Gavin’s teaching and writing are concerned with European art and visual culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with a special interest in French Surrealism. His books are: Futures of Surrealism: Myth, Science Fiction and Fantastic Art in France 1936-69 (Yale University Press, 2015); Surrealism, Art and Modern Science: Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Epistemology (Yale University Press, 2008); and The Duchamp Book (Tate Publishing, 2008). He is just completing a book on the Surrealist reception of late nineteenth century art, entitled Enchanted Ground: Surrealist Appraisals of Fin de Siècle Painting.

• European Modernism, 1848-1960
• Dada and Surrealist Art, Writing and Theory
• Art and Science
• Art and the Novel
• Theory, Methodology, Philosophy and History of Art and Visual Culture
• Science Fiction and Comics
• Magic, the Occult and Alchemy

• Reviews Editor, Art History
• Series Editor, Ashgate Studies in Surrealism
• Member of Editorial Board, Black Mirror

• BA History of Art Year 2: Lessons in Interpretation
• MA History of Art: Modernism After Postmodernism: Modern Art and its Interpretation

Current

• Tim Satterthwaite, ‘The visual language of European photo-illustrated magazines, 1920-1934’ Oct 2011-May 2015
• Gosia Osinska, ‘Warsaw Group ‘Rytm’ and the New Classicism, 1922-32′ Oct 2011-Oct 2014
• Kristina Rapacki, ‘Asger Jorn’s Folk: Nationhood, Myth, and the Comparative Method in Postwar Europe’ Oct 2012-Oct 2016 (suspended 1 year)
• Jeff Hammond, ‘Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism: modern art movements, artists groups and the individual in Japan (1910-1929)’ Oct 2013-Oct 2016 (suspended 1 year)
• William Atkin, ‘A Total Revolution of the Object: Surrealist Discourse on the Object, 1924-1966’ Oct 2013-Oct 2016
• Catherine Howe, ‘Francis Bacon’s French Influence(s): From Surrealism to Post-Structuralism’ Oct 2014-Oct 2017
• Rachel Stratton, ‘"The Artist as a Mirror of his Time”: Art, Popular Culture and the “Dialogic” Relationship between Surrealism in Britain and the Independent Group’ Oct 2014-Oct 2017

Recently completed

• Vanja Vlahovic, ‘Alexander Calder: Surrealism, Modern Science and the Everyday’ (2013)
• Sam Ensor Rose, ‘Formalism, Aesthetics, and English Art Writing, 1918-39′ (2013)
• James Day, ‘Studies in Art History Writing and the Revision of Whistler’s Art History’ (2013)