Dr Nicholas Tromans
School: The School of Surveying & Planning
Position: Course Leader, MA Art Market Appraisal
Biography
Nicholas Tromans studied Philosophy and Art History at Cambridge University and wrote a PhD thesis at Birmingham University on the early nineteenth-century genre painter David Wilkie. He worked for several years for Sotheby's in London and joined Kingston in 2006. He leads the MA in Art Market Appraisal, which is based in the School of Surveying and Planning, and also teaches on various modules in the School of Art and Design History.
Related links
Research expertise
Much of my research has followed the path of my PhD and has focused on nineteenth-century British painting. I have worked on the Pre-Raphaelites, on Orientalist pictures (images of the Middle East) and on various individual artists including David Wilkie, William Holman Hunt, Richard Dadd and G.F. Watts. Some other avenues of research have been the history of Spanish art, Scottish painting, and the relationship between aspects of medicine and visual culture. My fundamental interest now is in the ways in which images played roles in people's lives in the period before the invention of the motion picture. I am currently writing a book about the history of pictures in the home.
Teaching areas & responsibilities
Course Leader, MA Art Market Appraisal; contributor to many undergraduate Art and Design History modules.
Professional activity
- 2011 - presentExternal Examiner for MA in Art History & Visual Studies, Manchester University
Educational and professional qualifications
- 1995PhD Barber Institute, University of Birmingham
- 1990BA(Hons) Art History King's College, Cambridge
Conferences & events
Selected Public Lectures and Presentations since January 2008
-'The Orient in Perspective: Iconophobia and disenfranchisement in the nineteenth century', seminar paper, Edinburgh University, 13 March 2008
-'Orientalism and the Place of the Visual', paper at conference Orientalism Revisited: Art and the Politics of Representation (in connection with Lure of the East's showing in London), Tate Britain, 13 June 2008
-'Orientalist Painting and the Art Market', public lecture at Christie's, London, in connection with auction of Orientalist art, 29 June 2008
-'The Picture of Prophecy: Holman Hunt's Holy Land', Pre-Raphaelite Society annual lecture, Birmingham, 25 October 2008
-'Said and the image', paper at conference Orientalism 30 Years Later, York University, 1 November 2008
-'Holman Hunt in the Holy Land', public lecture in connection with Holman Hunt exhibition, Manchester Art Gallery, 8 November 2008
-'On Owning Orientalism', paper at conference Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism (in connection with Lure of the East's showing in Istanbul), Pera Museum, Istanbul, 27 November 2008
-'What's left of Said? Power, Visual Culture and Orientalism', at invited seminar Visuality Power Workshop, Open University, Milton Keynes, 10 September 2009
-'The Psychiatric Sublime', paper at conference The Sublime in Crisis? New Perspectives in British Visual Culture 1760-1900, Tate Britain, 14 September 2009
-'Goya and Wilkie: Two Views of the Spanish War of Independence', public lecture, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 22 September 2009
-'Richard Dadd in the Twentieth Century', seminar on Outsider and Folk Art, Tate Britain, 22 June 2010
-'From Newhaven to Bedlam and Back: Alexander Morison and Richard Dadd', public lecture, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 13 July 2010
-'Hope: A Victorian Icon', public lecture, Watts Gallery, Compton, 20 September 2011
-'Richard Dadd's Puck in Context', Puck Study Day, Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (in connection with museum's acquisition of picture), 21 September 2011
-'Richard Dadd and Sir Thomas Phillips', public lecture, Newport City Art Gallery (in connection with the exhibition The Institute of Mental Health is Burning), 24 September 2011
-'Richard Dadd on the Stage', Malvern Theatre (in connection with production of Purcell's Fairy Queen inspired by Dadd's work), 25 November 2011
-'In Conversation' discussion on Richard Dadd with Mike Jay, Tate Britain, 1 December 2011
-'Drawing Teeth: Ford Madox Brown's Mouths', contribution to panel discussion at Ford Madox Brown Study Day, Manchester Art Gallery (in connection with Ford Madox Brown exhibition), 9 December 2011
-'Diagnosing Dadd', Art of Psychiatry Society, Institute of Psychiatry, London, 25 January 2012 partially published at: www.artofpsychiatry.co.uk/richard-dadd-the-artist-and-the-asylum
-presenter of 'The Artist and the Asylum', a short film about the Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke (dir. Nick Aldridge as part of the Tate Shots series), released February 2012 http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/1446150083001
-Lecture at opening of the exhibition Richard Dadd: An Artist Abroad at Bethlem Hospital Museum and Archive, 11 February 2012
-'Richard Dadd: Sketches to Illustrate the History of Psychiatry', seminar paper, Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, Oxford, 21 May 2012
Consultancy
Collaborator with various museums in the development of exhibition projects, including Royal Academy of Arts, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Tate Britain.
Research groups & programmes
Research supervision
Publications
Article
Tromans, Nicholas [Reviewer] (2011) Book Review of: 'The poetic home: designing the 19th-century domestic interior' by Stefan Muthesius. Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture, 2(2), pp. 268-269. ISSN (print) 2041-9112
Tromans, Nicholas (2010) Nineteenth-century Orientalist painting. Groniek: Gronings historisch tijdschrift(187), pp. 157-170. ISSN (print) 0169-2801
Tromans, Nicholas (2010) The psychiatric sublime. Tate papers(13), ISSN (online) 1753-9854
Tromans, Nicholas (2009) Book Review of: 'Painting out of the ordinary: modernity and the art of everyday life in early nineteenth-century Britain' by David H. Solkin. The Burlington Magazine, 151(1273), pp. 247-248. ISSN (print) 0007-6287
Tromans, Nicholas (2009) Exhibition Review of: 'G.F. Watts: London and Harrogate'. Burlington Magazine, 151(1273), pp. 256-257. ISSN (print) 0007-6287
Tromans, Nicholas (2009) Painting out of the ordinary: modernity and the art of everyday life in early nineteenth-century Britain. D. H. Solkin. The Burlington Magazine, 151(1273), pp. 247-248. ISSN (print) 0142-6702
Tromans, Nicholas (2008) The future of Orientalism. KIOSK(2), pp. 6-11. ISSN (print) 1755-9626
Tromans, Nicholas [Reviewer] (2006) Book Review of: 'French art in nineteenth-century Britain' by Edward Morris. The Burlington Magazine, 148(1238), pp. 348-349. ISSN (print) 0007-6287
Tromans, Nicholas (2002) 'Like splendid dreams realised': David Wilkie's image of Spain. The British Art Journal, 3(3), pp. 36-42. ISSN (print) 1467-2006
Book
Tromans, Nicholas (2011) Hope: the life and times of a Victorian icon. Compton, U.K. : Watts Gallery. 80p. ISBN 9780956102270
Tromans, Nicholas (2011) Richard Dadd: the artist and the asylum. London, U.K. : Tate Publishing. 208p. ISBN 9781854379597
Tromans, Nicholas, Kabbani, Rana, Mernissi, Fatema, Riding, Christine and Weeks, Emily M (2008) The lure of the East: British Orientalist painting. London : Tate Publishing. 224p. ISBN 9781854377333
Tromans, Nicholas (2007) David Wilkie: the people's painter. Edinburgh, UK : Edinburgh University Press. 301p. ISBN 9780748625208
Tromans, Nicholas (2002) David Wilkie: painter of everyday life. London, UK : Dulwich Picture Gallery. 160p. ISBN 189851920x
Book Section
Tromans, Nicholas (2013) 'The defeat of narrative by vision': Said and the image. In: Elmarsafy, Ziad , Bernard, Anna and Attwell, David, (eds.) Debating orientalism. Basingstoke, U.K. : Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230303522 (In Press)
Tromans, Nicholas (2012) A portrait of the artist in London: the critical reception of Raeburn's Royal Academy exhibits, 1792-1823. In: Coltman, Viccy and Lloyd, Stephen, (eds.) Henry Raeburn: context, reception and reputation. Edinburgh, U.K. : Edinburgh University Press. pp. 179-207. ISBN 9780748654833
Tromans, Nicholas (2011) Bringing it home? Orientalist painting and the art market. In: Inankur, Zeynep , Lewis, Reina and Roberts, Mary, (eds.) The poetics and politics of place: Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism. Istanbul, Turkey : Pera Museum. pp. 65-74. (Symposium Series , no. 1) ISBN 9780295991108
Tromans, Nicholas (2009) The age of Goya. In: Baker, Christopher , Howarth, David and Stirton, Paul, (eds.) The discovery of Spain: British artists and collectors, Goya to Picasso. Edinburgh, U.K. : National Galleries of Scotland. pp. 29-45. ISBN 9781906270186
Tromans, Nicholas (2008) Palestine: picture of prophecy. In: Lochnan, Katharine and Jacobi, Carol, (eds.) Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite vision. Toronto : Art Gallery of Ontario. pp. 135-158. ISBN 9780300148329
Tromans, Nicholas (2007) Between the museum and the mausoleum: showing Spain to Britain. In: Panzanelli, Roberta and Preti-Hamard, Monica, (eds.) La circulation des oeuvres d'art / The circulation of works of art in the revolutionary era, 1789-1848. Paris : Institut National d'Historie de l'Art; Presses Universitaires de Rennes. pp. 323-330. ISBN 9782753503458
Conference or Workshop Item
Tromans, Nicholas [Speaker] (2009) Goya, Wilkie and the disasters of war. In: The Discovery of Spain ; 22 Sep 2009, Edinburgh, U.K.. (Unpublished)
Tromans, Nick (2009) The psychiatric sublime. In: The Sublime in Crisis? New Perspectives on the Sublime in British Visual Culture, 1760-1900; 14 - 15 Sep 2009, London, U.K.. (Unpublished)
Tromans, Nicholas (2009) What's left of Said? Power, visual culture and Orientalism. In: Visuality / Power Workshop; 09 - 10 Sep 2009, Milton Keynes, U.K.. (Unpublished)
