Dr Sophie Hatchwell

PhD, University of Bristol
MA, Courtauld Institute of Art
BA (hons), University of East London

I joined the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies at Birmingham in 2018. I am currently Associate Professor of History of Art, Academic Lead of the Culture Forward network, and Deputy Director for Research and Knowledge Exchange in the Collge of Arts and Law. My research concerns text-image relationships and display cultures, particularly in regional settings. At Birmingham, I have undertaken research funded by the British Academy, AHRC, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and Arts Council. I have been a Visiting Fellow at the Warburg Institute, University of London, and am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. 

Much of my work involves collaboration with arts organisations, in particular museums and galleries, across the UK and Ireland. I am particularly interested in R&D and knowledge exchange at the intersection of the academy and the creative and cultural sectors. 

Before joining Birmingham, I taught History of Art at the University of Bristol, and at Bristol School of Art. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

My teaching focuses on art history in the modern period, as well as theories and methodologies.
Current and past taught modules include:

Beauty, Goodness, Truth
Paris Moderne 1850-1930
American Art in the 1960s
Reading Art History
Concepts of Modernism
Debates and Methods
Object and Medium

I would welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students hoping to undertake research relating to my interests in the interrelationship of word and image, art theory and criticism in the 19th and 20th centuries, art and literature, 20th Century British art, art and intertextuality, and display, spectatorship and phenomenology.

Find out more - our PhD History of Art  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My research centres on visual culture in Britain and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular focus on the relationships between text and image, and display cultures. Much of my recent research has explored histories of collections and exhibitions in civic museums in the UK, as well as approaches to research collaboration between the museum and the academy.  Beyond a strictly geographic and historical context, my work considers how text intervenes in an audience’s experience of art objects, and I’m interested in tracing the diverse range of texts implicated in this dynamic.

My research on art writing, display cultures and collections histories feeds into my pedagogic interest in embedding real-world learning and ethics discussions within art history in higher education.

I am also part of the Midland Art Papers team.