Renaissance Art History Cambridge
Julia Biggs MA (Cantab) is a freelance art historian, writer, lecturer and tutor. Through Renaissance Art History Cambridge, she runs courses, informal talks, study days and gallery visits.
Her specialist areas are 15th and 16th century Italian painting, with a strong emphasis on image-making and artistic patronage (exploring less frequently examined topics such as female patronage), and the relationship between visual art and religion.
ABOUT
Having graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honours, where her main research interests centred on Christian art and objects, and the role of the arts in Holocaust remembrance, Julia has developed and delivered informal education and art appreciation sessions, study visits, illustrated talks, and tailored a series of private tutorials.
Her books include Raphael, an accessible study of the life and work of the archetypal High Renaissance artist, and Renaissance Masterpieces of Art, a fresh introduction to the wonderful world of the Italian Renaissance.
Julia has lectured for Cambridge University on the representation of Jews in the Italian Renaissance Courts, and her recent conference papers have explored the material culture of devotion, and the role of food and the senses in the Early Modern Jewish home. Her work in the field of Jewish Studies has also resulted in her contributing to catalogue texts for exhibitions of Jewish art in London and New York, and to the ground-breaking show Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500-1800 at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Her current research looks at the Jewish Gothic and stories of fear, horror and desire.
Julia has been a tutor and assessor with the Open College of the Arts (part of the Open University) since 2008, on its Creative Arts undergraduate programme, and she has supervised a range of student research projects.
Julia is a member of the Association for Art History and both the Haunted Shores and Cambridge Italian Research Networks. She is a contributing writer to Art UK and has been interviewed by BBC Culture.
