Elizabeth Prettejohn


Elizabeth Francesca Prettejohn is an art historian and author of several books about art history. Her books have included Rossetti and his Circle, The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites and Art for Art's Sake. She has also co-edited and co-authored several publications. She has written exhibition catalogues and papers for journals such as The Burlington Magazine, Journal of Victorian Culture and Art Bulletin.

Education and career

Prettejohn was the Professor of the history of art at the University of Bristol from 2005, before becoming head of the history of art at the University of York in 2012. She had also been the Professor of Modern Art at the University of Plymouth and the curator of Paintings and Sculpture at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. She studied at Harvard University, where she got her Bachelor of Arts degree, and at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she got her Master of Arts degree in 1987 and PhD degree in 1991. She is married to the Professor of Classics and Dean of Arts, Charles Martindale.

Publications

Books

NameYearPublisherNotes
Modern painters, old masters : the art of imitation from the Pre-Raphaelites to the First World War2017Yale University Press
The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso2012I. B. Tauris
Art for Art's Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting2007Yale University PressWon the 2008 Historians of British Art Prize for
single-authored book on a subject from the period after 1800
Beauty and Art 1750-20002005Oxford University PressPart of the Oxford History of Art series
The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites2000Tate Publishing and Princeton University Press
Interpreting Sargent1998Tate Publishing
Rossetti and his Circle1997Tate Publishing
After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England1999Manchester University Press and Rutgers University PressEditor
Frederic Leighton: Antiquity, Renaissance, Modernity1999Yale University PressEdited with Tim Barringer

Curated exhibitions

NameTimeLocationsNotes
J.W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite
J.W. Waterhouse: Garden of Enchantment
2008–2010Groninger Museum Groningen, Royal Academy of Arts London and
Museum of Fine Arts Montreal
With Peter Trippi, Robert Upstone and MaryAnne Stevens.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti2003-04Walker Art Gallery and Van Gogh MuseumWith Julian Treuherz and Edwin Becker
Adrian Stokes2002 JuneArnolfiniWith Edwin Becker and others
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema1996-97Walker Art Gallery and Van Gogh MuseumWith Edwin Becker and others
Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century1996-97Bristol City Museum and Art GalleryWith Michael Liversidge
Characters and Conversations: British Art 1900-19301996-97Tate Gallery LiverpoolWith Fiona Bradley
Impressionism for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector1994Courtauld Institute GalleriesResearcher