Department: Tate Britain Curatorial
Hosts: Carol Jacobi - Curator British Art, 1850鈥1915, and Amy Concannon, Manton Senior Curator, Historic British Art
Victoria鈥檚 research specialism of historic women artists led her to explore 罢补迟别鈥檚 collection from a range of angles, resulting in findings which informed Tate Britain鈥檚 2024 exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520鈥1920.
A painting by Emma Soyer (ne虂e Jones), Two Children With a Book 1831, is the first work by the artist to be held in a public collection. Victoria created a database of her research findings on Soyer, about whom little was previously known. This holds significant benefits for Tate in terms of interpretation and acquisition.
Some outcomes from Victoria鈥檚 research helped Tate to communicate with its audiences. A written piece about hair was linked to The Rossettis exhibition at Tate Britain (2023) and Victoria prepared a biography on Soyer for inclusion on 罢补迟别鈥檚 website.
Victoria also shared some of her findings through a guided tour of selected works by women artists at Tate Britain including Soyer鈥檚 Two Children with a Book 1831 and Henrietta Rae鈥榮 Psyche before the Throne of Venus 1894.
Victoria鈥檚 research led her to increasingly focus on the challenges faced by 19th-century women artists and strategies they used to navigate them. The discovery of a largely unresearched archival source of a catalogue for an 1897 exhibition of women artists curated by Henrietta Rae culminated in Victoria鈥檚 academic paper, Women鈥檚 work? A second paper, Making a name for herself, discusses the impact on the careers of married women artists foregoing their maiden names for their husband鈥檚 surnames.
Victoria Munn in the Tate Britain galleries during her Fellowship in 2023.
Biography
Victoria Munn is an art historian based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Based at the University of Auckland, she has recently submitted her PhD in art history, titled Gold, Fox, Jet, Snow: Hair colour and dyes in early modern Europe.
As well as her research as an early modernist, Victoria is conducting research on New Zealand women artists, and the way in which archival material such as letters can inform new scholarship on historical women artists.