Dr Émilie Oléron Evans

Profile

I am an art historian specialising in the social and cultural history of art history. My research focuses on the respective and combined roles of gender dynamics and of translation in the evolution of art history as a discipline and as a Western institution. 

I studied in Rennes, Lyon and Berlin. I am a graduate from the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (2005-2011). I received my PhD from the Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle and Queen Mary in 2014, and I published my thesis the following year. In Nikolaus Pevsner: Arpenteur des arts, I analyse the career of German-born art historian Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) as a pivotal moment in the progressive integration of questions of art and architecture into British culture. In 2015-17, I held a postdoctoral fellowship in Historiography of Art at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Strasbourg, where I coordinated the Dictionnaire Culturel de Strasbourg 1880-1930 and contributed to the exhibition Strasbourg, Laboratoire d’Europe as an author for the catalogue and an expert on art and culture in the city at the turn of the 20^th century. I joined Queen Mary in 2017 as a Teaching Fellow in visual culture of the French-speaking world.

My second monograph, titled L'histoire de l'art engagée: Linda Nochlin (Presses universitaires de Strasbourg) is out on 13th January 2025. American art historian Linda Nochlin (1931-2017) spent a career refuting the universality of dominant artistic discourses and listening to the voice of the "other" in its many incarnations. Her dialectical and dialogical approach to her subject is characteristic of her engagement, a French word that I borrowed from Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, herself describing Nochlin's commitment to always producing knowledge in the service of justice. Linda Nochlin's pursuit of an art history that is engagée is a constant source of inspiration and motivation in my research and my teaching practices.

Together with art historian Hans C. Hönes (University of Aberdeen), I am currently co-investigator on a project called 'Women and History of Art in the Making - Britain 1945-1974", funded by a Collaborative grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Teaching

Research

Research Interests:

• Women in art history: Translators, mediators, scholars and curators
• Cultural transfers, circulations of people, objects and thoughts
• Art and translation, art in translation
• Transnational history of art museums and collections, with a focus on the interactions between France, Germany and Britain
• History of the Modern Movement in art, architecture and design

• the Queen Mary Visual & Material Forum
• the Visual culture section of the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations

I currently convene the cross-departmental research group on Visual and Material Culture.

Examples of research funding:

April-June 2025 Bodleian Library Visiting Fellowship: Ann Ball Bodley Fellowship in Women’s History for the project ‘Women Making Art History in Post-War Britain: National and international networks in and around Oxford’

2024-2025 Collaborative Project Grant, Paul Mellon Centre: research workshops and seminars on Women professionals in academia, on digital humanities and quantitative analysis, and on Women in Art History in Britain

2019 - I was involved in two projects supported by Paul Mellon Centre Educational Programme grants:

Reconfiguring Relationships: Britain and the Bauhaus (International workshop, Tate Britain, October 2019)

Innovation and Acculturation: the Émigré Art Historians and Britain (International conference, in collaboration with the Leo Baeck Institute, November 2019)

Publications

Books

2025 L'histoire de l'art engagée de Linda Nochlin, Strasbourg, Presses universitaires de Strasbourg

Reviewed in: Journal des Arts, n. 650, Feb 2025

2015 Nikolaus Pevsner, arpenteur des arts, Paris, Démopolis

Reviewed in:

• Lectures, May 2016
• Revue de l’art, n° 192, 2016, pp. 84-85
• Kunstchronik 9/10, Oct-Nov 2016, pp. 499-503
• Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales 71/2, Apr-Jun 2016, pp. 542-544
• Angermion, 11/1, November 2018
• Bitácora Arquitectura, n. 44, 2020

Peer-reviewed Articles

• 2025 (accepted, under review) co-authored with Marie Gispert, 'De l'exposition-événement au(x) livre(s) : l'exemple des "Sources du XXe siècle" (1960-1961)', Balisages 9, 2025
• 2022 'The Art of Beating the Bounds: Art History in French Institutions', Kunstchronik 7, July 2022, 374-379. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/kc.2022.6
• 2020 'Invisible Layers: Palimpsestuous Meanings in Art Novels', Open Library of Humanities, 6(2). DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.517
• 2020 ‘“Une culture traductrice’’: quand Nikolaus Pevsner et Daniel Arasse (se) traduisent’, Revue Germanique Internationale (commissioned for a special issue on Histoire et histoire de l’art en traduction edited by M. Passini & B. Wilfert-Portal).
• 2019 ‘Art Practice and Art History in Fin de Siècle Alsace: the Art Journal Das Kunstgewerbe in Elsass-Lothringen’, Journal of Art Historiography (commissioned for a special issue on ‘Art History for Artists’ edited by E. Vratskidou, online).
• 2018 ‘Housing the Art of the Nation: The Home as Museum in Gustav F. Waagen’s Treasures of Art in Great Britain‘, Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide (online)
• 2015 ‘Gustav Waagen et l’institutionnalisation des “trésors de l’art” en Grande-Bretagne’, Revue Germanique Internationale 21, 2015, pp. 51-64.
• 2015 ‘Historien, guide, pédagogue: le discours architectural novateur de Nikolaus Pevsner’, Cahiers Thématiques 14, 2015, pp. 16-25.
• 2014 ‘Transposing the Zeitgeist ? Nikolaus Pevsner between Kunstgeschichte and Art History’, Journal of Art Historiography 11, Dec 2014 (online).
• 2012 ‘Réception et perception de la Renaissance burckhardtienne dans l’Angleterre du XIXe siècle’, Comparatio. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, 4/1, 2012, pp. 1-24. 

Book Chapters

• 2025 (in press) ‘Transferts culturels et échanges épistolaires entre Walter Gropius et Nikolaus Pevsner: le ‘‘pionnier’’ et son porte-parole’, in: M. Cardoso (ed.), L’historiographie de l’architecture sous l’angle des transferts culturels, Palmas, UFT Press.
• 2022 ‘L’indispensable ‘‘assistante’’: Sabine Hackenschmidt au Cabinet des estampes de Strasbourg’, in: F. Duhautpas, C. Foucher-Zarmanian and H. Marquié (ed.), Médiatrices des arts. Pour une histoire des transmissions et réseaux, féminins et féministes, Nanterre, Presses Universitaires de Nanterre.
• 2020 ‘Donner chaire: défense et illustration d’une discipline dans les rapports des chaires d’esthétique et d’histoire de l’art au Collège de France’, in: J. Desclaux & A. Compagnon (ed.), Le Collège de France et le Musée du Louvre, Paris, Collège de France (coll. Passage des disciplines).
• 2019, co-authored with C. Foucher Zarmanian, ‘Figures de l’ombre? Maggie Rutten (1898-1984), Madeleine-Paul David (1908-1989) et Rosa Schapire (1874-1954): traductrices et historiennes de l’art en Europe’, in: 'Dire presque la même chose': L'histoire de l'art et ses traductions (XIXe-XXe siècles), edited by A. Sotropa & M. Métayer, Bordeaux, Esthétiques du divers.
• 2018 ‘Vers une discipline? Les discours sur l’art au Royaume-Uni pendant la Première Guerre mondiale’, in: A. Frenet, M. Passini, S. Combescure (ed.), Hommes et patrimoines en guerre, l’heure du choix, Dijon, Presses universitaires de Dijon.
• 2014 ‘“Bringer of Riches”: Nikolaus Pevsner et le patrimoine britannique’, in: T. Le Hégarat, A.-C. Bondon, J. Delassus (ed.), Faiseurs et passeurs de patrimoine XIXe-XXIe siècle (Workshop Proceedings).

Catalogue essays, encyclopaedia entries, 'vignettes'

• 2024 'Pique-Nique à Hampton Court'; 'La chouette et le lion', '"J'ai épousé la photographie"', 'Double portrait', in: V. Claass, P. Cugy, C. Foucher Zarmanian et al., En couple: Historiennes et historiens de l'art au travail, Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne.
• 2017 (Commissioned) ‘Illustres et inconnues: pour une histoire des femmes à Strasbourg, 1880-1930’ and (with R. Recht) ‘Aby Warburg, étudiant à Strasbourg’, in: R. Recht, J. Pijaudier-Cabot (ed.), Strasbourg, laboratoire d’Europe, 1880-1930, exhibition catalogue, Strasbourg, Musées de la ville de Strasbourg.
• 2017 (Commissioned) Dictionary entries: ‘Affaire Spahn’; ‘Blochmann, Elisabeth’; ‘Clemen, Paul’; ‘Heuss-Knapp, Elly’; ‘Hipp, Johanna’; ‘Koch, Hans’; ‘Kraus, Franz Xaver’; ‘Kunstgewerbe in Elsass-Lothringen, Das’; ‘Leitschuh, Franz Friedrich’; ‘Maugain, Gabriel’; ‘Muller, Dorette’; ‘Mündel, Curt’; ‘Polaczek, Ernst’; ‘Rau, Jacqueline’; ‘Schmarsow, August’; ‘Schneegans, Friedrich Eduard’; ‘Springer, Anton’; ‘Trübner, Karl’; ‘Verbindung deutscher Kunstvereine für historische Kunst’; ‘Wolff, Paul’; ‘Wust, Emma’, in: R. Recht, J.-C. Richez (dir.), Dictionnaire culturel de Strasbourg 1880-1930, Strasbourg, PUS.

Translations

• (Commissionned, in press) N. Pevsner, Géographie de l’art anglais (The Englishness of English Art), Strasbourg, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg.
• 2025 (Commissionned, under review) L. Nochlin, Matthias Grünewald à Colmar : une confrontation visuelle, Paris, Belopolie.
• 2025 (Commissioned, in preparation with M. Galland-Szymkowiak) A. Schmarsow, L’Architecture, configuratrice d’espace – essais, Marseille, Parenthèses.
• 2014 A. Sacks, ‘Migration et musique chorale: deux facteurs d’émancipation et de succès pour les Juifs allemands dans le Berlin d’avant-guerre’, in: L. Guillon, H. Knörzer (ed.), Berlin et les Juifs XIXe-XXIe siècles, Paris, Éditions de l’Éclat.

Reviews and conversation pieces

• 2025 (in preparation) 'HistoireS de l'art en France, 1964-2024. Lieux, questions, défis', Histoire de l'art 
• 2025 (in press) 'Lee Chichester and Brigitte Sölch (dir.), Kunsthistorikerinnen 1910-1980: Theorien, Methoden, Kritiken', Regards croisés
• 2019 'Ute Engel, Stil und Nation: Barockforschung und deutsche Kunstgeschichte (ca.1830–1933)', Regards croisés 9 (online), published 16.12.2019.
• 2019 Migrating histories of art - Self-translations of a discipline, ed. Costa, Maria Teresa and Hans Christian Hönes, 2018, Appareil (online), published 18.09.2019.
• 2017 ‘A Cultural Constellation: burckhardtsource.org’, Open Library of Humanities: Special Issue on Visual Culture, 3(1), 2, p. 1–12.
• 2015 ‘The Voice of Art History: Nikolaus Pevsner’s Work for the BBC’ (Review of Pevsner, Nikolaus, Pevsner: The Complete Broadcast Talks. Architecture and Art on Radio and Television, 1945-1977, ed. by S. Games, Ashgate, 2014 and S. Games, Pevsner: The BBC Years. Listening to the Visual Arts, Ashgate, 2015), Journal of Art Historiography 13.
• 2014 ‘Rütten, Raimund, Republik im Exil. Frankreich 1848 bis 1851: Marie Cécile Goldsmid, Citoyenne und Künstlerin, Olms, 2012’, Romantisme. Revue du XIXe siècle, 4/166.
• 2014 ‘Sutton, Katie, The Masculine Woman in Weimar Germany, Berghahn, 2012’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 22/4.

Research Blog

• 2021 'Sur les traces d’un "art anglais" (1): Nikolaus Pevsner, "inside outsider" and (2): Histoires et géographies de l’art’

Supervision

Emily Fuggle, 'Facilitators, administrators, and curators: The Women of the Ben Uri (1915-1995)', Collaborative doctoral award in partnership with Ben Uri Museum and Gallery

Salomé Jacques, 'The Impact of the Commune on the Impressionists' Representation of Women' (joint supervision with Dr. Hannah Williams)

Matthew Shaul, 'Colour my Dreams? Colour Photography and the Invention of German Identity' (second supervisor)

I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake doctoral research in visual culture, including the following areas:

• Cultural and artistic transfers (19th-20th century)
• Transnational art history (France, Germany and Britain)
• Women in art history
• Text and image relationship

Public Engagement

Public talk on Linda Nochlin - Book Launch (13th February 2025)

‘Leonie and Carl Gombrich in conversation’ (conducted interview of the grandchildren of art historian’s Ernst H. Gombrich for the Visual & Material Forum)

'Moving Memories' - a series of talks and activities organised at Tate Exchange as part of the Queen Mary Arts and Culture residency on the topic of 'Ideas in motion' (11-16th June 2019)

Public talk on the history of the chair(s) of aesthetics and/or history of art at the Collège de France in Paris: 'Donner chaire' (video).

Interview on architectural history for the Global Lab podcast: 'Seeing Cities (audio)' (2019)

Literature workshop for Books@Work, Steelcase, Strasbourg (Jul 2017).

Interview for a video presentation of writer and translator Denise Naville in the exhibition Strasbourg, laboratoire d’Europe, Strasbourg (sep 2017-feb 2018).

Guest Talk, “Nikolaus Pevsner, a Kunsthistoriker in Britain”, Inauguration of the exhibition Germans in Britain organised by Migration Museum Project, QMUL(Jan 2015).

Contributor to the exhibition catalogue Les frères Humboldt: l’Europe de l’esprit, Observatoire de Paris, curated by Bénédicte Savoy and David Blankenstein (May-Jul 2014).

Dissemination

Available to watch online:

'Linda Nochlin : L'histoire de l'art engagée', book launch at the Bibliothèque Nationale Universitaire in Strasbourg, in conversation with Roland Recht. Link to video.

'Historiennes féministes de l'art en réseaux' Roundtable organised by the research group Femmes Artistes en Réseaux (F.A.R.). Link to video.

'Donner chaire : défense et illustration d'une discipline dans les rapports des chaires d'esthétique et d'histoire de l'art du Collège de France' - Conference on 'Le Collège de France et le musée du Louvre' at the Collège de France, Paris: Link to video.

'Mémoire double: les Kurz et l'École de Vienne', given in the international workshop held at the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art on Penser, travailler, écrire à deux. Les couples d’historiennes et d’historiens de l’art / ⁢⁢⁢⁢⁢Thinking and Working Together: Couples and the Writing of Art History : Link to video.