Dr Chloe Ward

I am currently finishing my second book, Art and Action: The Social Theory of Victorian Painting. It traces the origins of the idea that art should not only comment on society, but also act as a political tool by which to shape it. My first book, The Drawings of G. F. Watts, was the first analysis of drawings by the celebrated Victorian painter, George Frederic Watts (1817-1904).

I am the recipient of grants and awards from the AHRC, the Institute of Historical Research, the Royal Historical Society, the Art Fund, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. From January 2019–September 2021, I held an AHRC Early Career Leadership Award to complete the project 'From Protest to Propaganda: A History of Activist Art in Britain, 1845–1918'.

My main research areas include:

• The intellectual history of nineteenth century art and culture
• The art produced by activists, political groups, and protestors, from the mid-nineteenth century until the First World War
• The practice and reception of Victorian drawing
• Periodical illustration and the mass circulation of imagery
• The history of art exhibitions, particularly exhibitions of British art in America
• Art and disability

Books

• The Drawings of G. F. Watts. London: Philip Wilson, 2015.

Articles

• ‘Images of Empathy: Representations of Force Feeding in Votes for Women’ in Suffrage and the Arts, eds. Miranda Garrett and Zoe Thomas. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. 
• 'England’s Michelangelo in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The G. F. Watts Exhibition, 1884–5.' Comparative American Studies, Spring 2016
• 'The Warrior and the Wife: Imagining the Irish Homeland in the Illustrations of John Campbell.' Irish Studies Review 22, no. 1 (2014): 7–21.
• 'The Gossamer Veil: Britain in Danger on the Covers of The New Age.'  Literature and History 22, no. 1 (2013): 42–60.
• 'The Two Sphinxes: Fighting Poverty with Art on the Covers of The New Age.' British Art Journal XIII, no. 2 (2012): 49–54.
•  'The Sensual Banquet Scene: Sex and the Senses in 18^th Dynasty Theban Tomb Paintings.'(link sends e-mail)  St. Andrews Journal of Art History and Museum Studies 13 (2009): 47–56.