Lucy Whelan

Dr. Lucy Whelan

Fellow der Alfred Töpfer Stiftung F.V.S.

lucy.whelan@hu-berlin.de

Lucy Whelan is a visiting postdoctoral researcher on a Hanseatic Scholarship from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung. She primarily researches on modern art, especially in France and Germany.

Lucy’s recent doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford offers a new interpretation of the French artist Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), examining how Bonnard’s paintings and drawings challenge the role of perception in representation. She is currently preparing a book manuscript based on this doctoral work, provisionally titled Pierre Bonnard Beyond Vision. Her wider interests include modern art in the first half of the twentieth century in France and Germany, phenomenological approaches to art and close looking, and approaches that treat art as a form of knowledge.

Lucy previously completed her M.St. at Oxford University following her B.A. in Philosophy at Cambridge University, and has also worked at Goldsmiths College, University of London. In 2016, she co-organised the inter-disciplinary symposium ‘Thinking Colour’ at the University of Oxford, that explored the connections between art history and philosophical thought in relation to colour. In 2015, she co-convened a session on ‘Thinking Images’ at the Association of Art Historians’ Annual Conference, exploring how images offer a unique mode of thinking, and the publication following this session is currently underway. She has also taught both undergraduate and masters level courses in History of Art departments in Cambridge and Oxford Universities, on topics including approaches to art history, modern art 1880-1930, and art after 1960.