Elizabeth McGrath, (born 20 March 1945) is a British

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

, and academic. Spending all of her career at the

Warburg Institute The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of cultural history and the role of images in culture – cros ...

of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, she was curator of the photographic collection from 1991 to 2010 and

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of the History of Art from 2000 to 2010. She additionally held the

Slade Professorship of Fine Art The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the oldest professorship of art and art history at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and University College, London. History The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collecto ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

from 1989 to 1990. Since her retirement in 2010, she has been

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

and an

honorary fellow Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in m ...

of the Warburg Institute.

Honours

In 1998, McGrath was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

(FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanit ...

for the humanities and social sciences. In 2003, she was elected a Member of the

Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts The Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts ( nl, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, or KVAB) is one of an independent learned society of science and arts of the Flemish Community in Belgium. ...

. Her book ''Rubens: Subjects from History, a volume in the Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard'' (London 1997), won the Mitchell Prize in the History of Art for 1998, and was awarded the Eugene Baie prize of the province of Antwerp (for a work on Flemish Cultural History) for the years 1993–98.

Selected works

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References

1945 births British art historians Women art historians British curators British women curators Academics of the Warburg Institute Slade Professors of Fine Art (University of Oxford) Fellows of the British Academy Living people British women historians {{UK-historian-stub