Dr. Megan Aldrich, Academic Director

Profile:

Megan Aldrich joined Sotheby’s Institute of Art in 1987, having previously worked in the Furniture Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum and as an adjunct lecturer in art history at Richmond University. A specialist in the history of furniture and interior architecture, she lectured on the well-known Works of Art Course (now the MA in Fine and Decorative Art). She was programme director of that MA from 1990 until 2005, when she was appointed Academic Director of the Institute; she continues to teach.

Dr Aldrich has an undergraduate degree in art history and religious studies from Brown University in Rhode Island, and an MA and PhD in architectural history from the University of Toronto. In 2000 she helped to establish the split-site PhD programme with the University of Manchester and has co-supervised two doctoral students working in the areas of decorative art and collecting. She was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2001; has taught on the summer schools of Cambridge (1997) and Plymouth (2006-07) Universities; and held a Paul Mellon Senior Research Fellowship in 2004.


Recent research interests:

Dr Aldrich is interested in ‘outsider’ styles operating within the broader canon of classicism in European art and design. Much of her previous work has centred on aspects of the gothic revival and antiquarianism, leading to a conference held at the Society of Antiquaries in 2007 on ‘Antiquaries and Archaists’; the papers were published in a book of the same name in 2009 (see bibliography). She is currently investigating how terms like ‘Saxon’ and ‘gothic’ were used to describe neo-medieval designs, and in 2010 gave a series of lectures at the Victoria and Albert Museum to accompany the recent exhibition on Horace Walpole.

She has also investigated the use of Asian motifs in European decorative art and interiors. During the last two years she has examined the impact of neo-classicism on the chinoiserie designs of John and Frederick Crace at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and in other commissions, leading to lectures given at the Sir John Soane Museum, Sotheby’s Institute of Art Singapore, and at Brighton. She has also published on the subject of japanned furniture (see ‘The Countess of Dysart’s Backstools’ in the bibliography).


Bibliography:

Books and exhibition catalogues:

‘The Countess of Dysart’s Backstools’ in Tony Godfrey, ed. Understanding Art Objects: thinking through the eye. London: Ashgate Lund Humphries, 2009, pps 30-41.

Thomas Rickman’s Handbook of Gothic Architecture and Taxonomic Classification of the Past’, in Megan Aldrich and Robert Wallis, eds. Antiquaries and Archaists: the past in the past, the past in the present. Reading: Spire Books, 2009, pps 62-74.

‘Thomas Rickman in Ireland: the building of Lough Fea and its context’, in Michael McCarthy and Karina O’Neil, eds. Studies in the Gothic Revival. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008, pps 141-58.

‘The Development of European Furniture, c. 1550-c.1900’, in John Manduca, ed. Antique Furniture in Malta. Ex. Cat. Valletta: Patrimonju Malti, 2002, pps 73-92.

‘William Beckford’s Abbey at Fonthill: from the picturesque to the sublime, in Derek Ostergard, ed. William Beckford, 1760-1844: an eye for the magnificent. Ex. Cat. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001, pps 116-35; cat. entries pps 349-55.

‘Gothic Sensibility: the early years of the Gothic Revival’, in Paul Atterbury, ed. AWN Pugin: master of Gothic Revival. Ex. Cat. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995, pps 12-29.

Gothic Revival. London: Phaidon Press, 1994; 1997. Awarded the Banister Fletcher Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects for best book on art or architecture of 1994.

The Craces: Royal Decorators, 1768-1899. Editor and principal contributor. London: John Murray, in conjunction with the Royal Pavilion, Art gallery and Museums, Brighton, 1990.

Articles:

‘John Crace and John Soane: a collaboration in context’ in Colin Rose, ed. Journal of the Traditional Paint Forum (2009).

‘Crace, Pugin, and John Naylor’s Leighton Hall’, co-authored with Barry Shifman, in Furniture History 41 (2005), pps 117-87.

New article on Thomas Rickman for the New Dictionary of National Biography. Colin Matthews, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

New articles on J.G. Crace, J.D. Crace, and the Crace family for the New Dictionary of National Biography. Colin Matthews, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

‘Furniture by Crace for Mr Astor Reunited at Linton Park’, Camellia Journal (winter 2003), pps 18-20.

‘Marquetry in the Medieval Court: the Octagonal Tables of Pugin and Crace’, Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 21 (2001), pps 48-58.

‘A Setting for Boulle Furniture: the Duke of Wellington’s Gallery at Stratfield Saye’, Apollo 147 (June 1998), pps 19-27.

Advisor and author, The Encyclopedia of Interior Design. Joanna Banham, ed. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997. Articles on the Baroque interior, the Gothic Revival interior, and the Crace firm of decorators.

‘The Crace Firm of Decorators’, The Macmillan Dictionary of Art. Jane Shoaf Turner, ed. London: Macmillan, 1997.

‘The Furniture of J.G. Crace and Son’, The Magazine Antiques 139 (June 1991), pps 1140-49.

Chapter on European Baroque furniture in Christopher Payne, ed. The Sotheby’s Concise Encyclopedia of Furniture. London: Conran Octapus, 1989.

‘The Marquess and the Decorator: J.D. Crace at Longleat House’, Country Life (Dec. 7, 1989), pps 162-67.

‘Fit for an Emperor at Windsor: J.G. Crace at Windsor Castle’, Country Life (Dec. 8, 1988), pps 56-59.

‘Gothic Interiors of the 19th Century: John Gregory Crace at Abney Hall’, V&A Album 5 (1986), pps 76-84.

‘Looking Glasses in the Chippendale Style’, Antique Collecting 21 (October 1986), pps 77-79. Edward Joy Memorial Essay Prize Runner-up.

‘Gothic Architecture Illustrated: the drawings of Thomas Rickman in New York’. The Antiquaries Journal 65 (1985), pps 427-33.