Dr Claire I R O'Mahony

Profile details

Associate Professor in History of Art and Design

Biography 

My formation, teaching and research have centred on a commitment to encouraging interdisciplinarity and access to lifelong learning. I was a 'double major' in Art History and English Literature with an additional concentration in French at the University of California at Berkeley. Whilst Education Officer for Secondary Schools and Community Groups at the Courtauld Gallery, I also taught undergraduates at the Courtauld, Birkbeck and Reading Universities. My doctorate considered how townhall murals in Third Republic France represented the contested geopolitics of regional and republican identities through public decoration (Courtauld Institute of Art, London supervised by Professor John House). After being Director of Lifelong Learning for History Art at the University of Bristol (2001-7), I joined the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford as a University Lecturer in 2006. I have served as Director of Graduate Studies (Postgraduate Taught and Research) for the Department and as Admissions Tutor for Kellogg College. Having been a researcher for the Richard Green Galleries and Royal Academy of Arts, London, I curated Brunel and the Art of Invention for the Bristol City Art Gallery for Brunel 200 in 2006.  I was Chair of the Design History Society and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Design History from 2019 to 2022.  

Research

(blue underlined words link to my publications)

The interiors where we dwell, work and play, the objects and memories within them, and landscapes which remain inscribed in our mind's eye, all embody everyday history and placemaking. My research explores how the sensoriality of design and craft affords traces of historical experience which resonates with the spoken and written word.

Recognizing the autonomy of local cultures is the methodological leitmotif of my writing. These 'colonies within' embody distinctive  identities positioned as borderlands and peripheries by centralised nation states. Through traditions of making such as mural decoration, tapestry and furniture as well as the performance of creative identity through exhibition installations, these marginalised places and peoples engaged dynamically with both the contemporary world and their own collective memory. Occitan Languedoc and Borderland Lorraine in the late nineteenth century alongside Aubusson in the Creuse and the modernity of the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland in the twentieth century are my main fascinations so far. Encounters with the material cultures of First Nations, Japan and Africa have also informed my writing. 

Teaching

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. I have supervised over 160 successful 15,000-word MSt dissertations. With a lead supervisor, Professor William Whyte, I am currently co-supervising two doctoral projects in the History Faculty: an exploration of the adaptive re-use of historic miltary and religious built environments for contemporary purposes by Minna Colakis and a historical analysis of nineteenth-century building materials by Lily Crowther. My supervisee Emma Anderson completed her DPhil in Architectural History on turn-of-the century luxury hotels in London in 2020. It has also been my priviledge to serve as an External Examiner for successful doctoral candidates at the Universities of Brighton, Cambridge and Glasgow.

Outreach 

Recent Publications