About

York Art History Collaborations (YAHCs) was established by the Department of History of Art at the University of York in January 2016. It exists to oversee the Department’s network of existing partnerships and to encourage future collaborations with other external partners.

The History of Art Department has a long-standing reputation for collaboration with museums, art galleries, and other heritage organisations. We are committed to working in partnership with colleagues in museums and galleries. We believe that this enriches everything that we do—both as researchers and teachers. Working in collaboration enables us to produce high-quality, original research, and to reach audiences not normally accessible to university academics.

Partners

We have developed particularly successful relationships with the National Gallery, London, Tate Museums, the V&A, and York Museums Trust. We also enjoy excellent relationships with museums, galleries and country houses in the north of England—including Castle HowardThe Henry Moore InstituteThe Hepworth Wakefield, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, the National Railway Museum and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Exhibitions

Our academic staff regularly guest curate and co-curate exhibitions in museums and galleries at home and abroad. Recent shows include Making a Masterpiece: Bouts and Beyond, 1450 - 2020 (2019-20) and Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud (2019) at York Art Gallery; Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece (2019), Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting (2014) and Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance (2014) at the National Gallery, London;  Albert Moore: Of Beauty and Aesthetics (2016-17) at the Museum De Buitenplaats, Holland, and York Art Gallery; Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity (2016) at the Fries Museum, Holland, the Belvedere, Vienna and Leighton House Museum, London; Sculpture Victorious (2015) at Tate Britain; and Mondrian and his Studios (2014) at Tate Liverpool.  Between them, these exhibitions have attracted more than a million visitors.

Grants

As well as exhibitions, we collaborate on major research projects. In the last decade we have received more than £2.5 million of AHRC funding to work on joint research projects with the National Gallery, the V&A, and Tate Britain, as well as the Houses of Parliament, York Minster and, most recently, St Paul's Cathedral.

Students

Our students are no less involved. We have co-supervised more than a score of PhDs with museums and galleries, and we have a successful programme of MA studentships that allow postgraduates to gain work experience while researching works of art and associated archives in museums and galleries. Our undergraduates also benefit from our links with museums and galleries.

In 2017 we launched a new BA degree in Curating and Art History; in their second year, students undertake a placement with a local heritage organisation.  Despite the current restrictions, these placements have all gone ahead this year, though remotely.

Work with us

We always welcome approaches from museums and galleries—whether small or large, local or far away—to work with us.

This website describes our activities — past, present and future.