Dr Claire I R O'Mahony

Profile details

Associate Professor in History of Art and Design

Biography

My teaching is primarily for the Master of Studies degree programme in the History of Design which I founded at Oxford in 2009 and for which I am Course Director. Over 140 MSt dissertations have been successfully completed by supervisees in my care. At present I am also helping to supervise two doctoral projects with their lead supervisor Professor William Whyte in the History Faculty: a historical analysis of nineteenth-century building materials with Lily Crowther and an exploration of the adaptive re-use of historic miltary and religious built environments to new purposes with Minna Colakis. My supervisee Emma Anderson completed her DPhil in Architectural History on turn-of-the century luxury hotels in London in 2020. 

My doctorate explored regional and republican identities represented in the mural decoration of townhalls in Third Republic France; I was supervised by Professor John House (Courtauld Institute, 1998). I began my career teaching at the Courtauld Institute, Birkbeck, Reading and Thames Valley Universities and as Education Officer for Secondary Schools and Community groups at the Courtauld Gallery (1991-9) before becomming Director of Lifelong Learning for History Art at the University of Bristol (2001-7). I was appointed by the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford first as a University Lecturer in 2006, I am now an Associate Professor. My curatorial experience began as an researcher for the Richard Green Galleries and Royal Academy of Arts, London and in 2006, I curated Brunel and the Art of Invention for the Bristol City Art Gallery for Brunel 200.  I served as Chair of the Design History Society and Associate Editor of the Journal of Design History (2019 to 2022). 

My research explores visual, material, spatial, sartorial and sensorial design cultures in Europe between 1870 and 1968. It has been my priviledge to be External Examiner for doctoral candidates at the University of Brighton, Cambridge and Glasgow.

 

Recent Publications

  • 'Representations of Crafts' in Cultural History of Craft in the Modern Age (1920‒present). edited by Professor Emeritus Clive Edwards (in press with Bloomsbury Academic for publication 2025).
  • 'Fashioning fairy fellows: Androgynous performativity in the Savoy Shakespeare Productions 1912–14,' Critical Studies in Men's Fashion, Special issue Menswear in Performance, 11(1), 2024, pp. 37-57. 
  • 'Forging foam at the 1925 Paris Exhibition' chapter in collected volume The Senses and Interior Design edited by Professor John Potvin (Manchester University Press, 2023) pp. 171-188.
  •  ‘Music of Colour The Art of Ukrainian Tapestry’ in Music of Colour (Kyiv: Gallery Portal 11, 2023) pp.46-57.
  • ‘Billiard table’ in European Sports History in 100 Objects edited by Daphné Bolz and Michael Kruger WWU Münster (arete Verlag, 2023). 

Outreach