Dr Claire I R O'Mahony

Profile details

Associate Professor in History of Art and Design

Biography 

Interdisciplinarity has been the main stay of my formation, teaching and research. As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, I was a 'double major' in Art History and English Literature with an additonal concentration in French. The Masters programme I undertook at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London centred on France and Britain between 1848 and 1870. My MA dissertation examined the representation of the life model in visual and literary cultures of fin-de-siècle France and was published in the inaugural issue of Art on the Line. My doctorate considered how the mural decoration of townhalls in Third Republic France represented the contested geopolitics of regional and republican identities (Courtauld Institute, 1998). My, much missed, supervisor was Professor John House.  Chapters from this project were published in the Journal of War and Culture Studies and Institutions and Power in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Culture. As a doctoral student, I taught undergrduate courses at the Courtauld Institute and at Birkbeck, Reading and Thames Valley Universities. I was also the Education Officer for Secondary Schools and Community groups at the Courtauld Gallery (1991-9) before becoming Director of Lifelong Learning for History Art at the University of Bristol (2001-7). I was appointed by the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford as a University Lecturer in 2006, becoming an Associate Professor. My curatorial experience began as a researcher for the Richard Green Galleries and Royal Academy of Arts, London. In 2006, I curated Brunel and the Art of Invention for the Bristol City Art Gallery for Brunel 200.  I served as Chair of the Design History Society and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Design History (2019 to 2022). 

Research

The interiors where we dwell, work and play, the objects within them that become infused with personal and collective memory, and the landscapes which remain inscribed in our mind's eye until our last breath often after their disappearance, all embody evocative manifestations of everyday history and placemaking. My research explores how these visual, material, spatial, sartorial and sensorial design and craft cultures afford traces of historical experience. This material evidence manifests a physical testament for interpretation which resonates deeply and meaningfully with the spoken and written word.

Recognizing the particularity and vitality of dissenting local cultures is the methodological leitmotif of my writing. These 'colonies within' embody distinctive cultures positioned as borderlands and peripheries by centralised nation states. Through local traditions of making such as tapestry and furniture as well as the performance of creativity and identity through exhibitions displays, these marginalised places and peoples engaged dynamically with the modern world. Occitan Languedoc and Borderland Lorraine in the late nineteenth century alongside Aubusson and the modernity of the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland in the twentieth century are my main fascinations so far, alongside small forays engaging with the material cultures of First Nations, Africa, and Asia which inform my thinking and writing. 

Teaching

My teaching is primarily for the Master of Studies degree programme in the History of Design which I founded at Oxford in 2009 and for which I am Course Director. Over 160 MSt dissertations have been successfully completed by the supervisees in my care. I am also co-supervising two doctoral projects in the History Faculty with their lead supervisor, Professor William Whyte: a historical analysis of nineteenth-century building materials by Lily Crowther and an exploration of the adaptive re-use of historic miltary and religious built environments for contemporary purposes by Minna Colakis. My supervisee Emma Anderson completed her DPhil in Architectural History on turn-of-the century luxury hotels in London in 2020. It has also been my priviledge to serve as an External Examiner for successful doctoral candidates at the Universities of Brighton, Cambridge and Glasgow.

Outreach 

Recent Publications