Dr Gregory Salter

• PhD University of East Anglia
• MA Courtauld Institute of Art
• BA University of Aberdeen

I have been Lecturer in Art History at Birmingham since 2016. Before that, I completed a PhD at the University of East Anglia in 2013, took on a post-doctoral role at the Geffrye Museum of the Home in London between 2013 and 2015, and taught at the Queen Mary, University of London, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Birkbeck, University of London, and CAPA: the Global Education Network. I am originally from Middlesbrough, and attended a state comprehensive school before going to university.

I convene the final year modules Contemporary Art And Home and Contemporary Art And Masculinity, the second year module Post-War: Art in Britain After the Second World War, and I teach on the first year modules Object And Medium 2, Writing Art’s Histories 2, and Study Skills. I also convene the MA module Enterprising Culture.

Gregory Salter's research to date has focused on the themes of home and masculinity in post-war British art. He has published numerous articles on this work and he has completed a book titled Art And Masculinity in Post-War Britain: Reconstructing Home, which will be published by Bloomsbury in November 2019.

His next research project will be a history of queer British art from 1945 to the present. It will explore how works produced by queer artists in Britain since 1945 were both shaped by international forces – namely colonialism, its aftermath, and global migration – and offer a greater understanding of how queer subjectivity in Britain has been shaped by - and continues to be shaped by - these forces. Artists include Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Sunil Gupta, and Isaac Julien.

Dr Salter welcomes enquiries from prospective postgraduate students hoping to undertake research relating to his research and teaching interests.

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

My research to date has focused on themes of masculinity and home in post-war British art. My book - Art And Masculinity in Post-War Britain: Reconstructing Home - is published by Bloomsbury in November 2019. It traces how artists represented home and masculinities in the period of social and personal reconstruction after the Second World War in Britain. It considers home as an unstable entity at this historical moment, imbued with the optimism and hopes of post-war recovery while continuing to resonate with the memories and traumas of wartime. Artists examined in the book include John Bratby, Francis Bacon, Keith Vaughan, Francis Newton Souza, Victor Pasmore, and Gilbert & George. Case studies featured range from the nuclear family and the body, to the nation. Combined, they present an argument that art enables an understanding of post-war reconstruction as a temporally unstable, long-term phenomenon which placed conceptions of home and masculinity at the heart of its aims.

My next research project examines queer British art since 1945 in a global context. Scholarship, exhibitions, and popular publications on queer British art history and queer British history have, to date, largely had a national-focus, examining changes in legislation, activism, home, and urban experience. But what would a queer British history look like if we explored the histories of colonialism, decolonisation, and global migration that have shaped queer subjectivity in Britain since the Second World War? This project explores travels, ideas, experiences, encounters, and migrations into and outside of Britain are fundamental to our understanding of queer British art history and queer British history. I argue that artworks can function as forms of archival work in this context, making visible these elements of queer British history that otherwise elude traditional archives. Artists include: Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Sunil Gupta, and Isaac Julien.

I am Admissions Tutor and the personal tutor for Joint Honours students in English/History of Art and History/History of Art.