Grant Pooke undertook his MA in Art History at the University of St Andrews, an MPhil at Kent and a PhD at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and also of the Higher Education Academy. Grant has tutored for the Open University (including roles as an Authoring Consultant and as a Co-Curriculum Adviser/Art History for the Teach& Learn Project), the University of Kent’s School of Continuing Education, the Workers’ Educational Association and for the Kent Institute of Art & Design (now UCCA). He holds a Postgraduate Journalism Diploma from the London School of Printing & Distributive Trades. Grant initiated the setting up of the University of Kent’s first dedicated, part-time, open-entry BA Honours degree programme in Art History.

Courses Convened and Tutored:

• HA595 Visual Arts Writing
• HA588 Dissertation Module
• HA554 Contemporary Art: From Warhol to Whiteread
• HA551 Russian Painting from the Academy to the Avant-Garde

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Selected Publications:

Contemporary British Art: An Introduction (Routledge 2010)

Understand Contemporary Art (Hodder & Stoughton, 2010). Co-author

Francis Klingender 1907-1955: A Marxist Art Historian Out of Time (Marx Memorial Library 2008)

Art History: The Basics (Routledge 2008/2nd edition 2010). Co-author

Teach Yourself Art History (Hodder & Stoughton 2003. Rev ed. 2008/2010). Co-author

‘Francis. D Klingender: Exodus and Exile’ in Socialist History 30: 1956 and the New Left Ed Gidon Cohen (Rivers Oram Press, 2007), pp22-42

‘Pregenitality and the Singing Sculpture; The anal-sadistic universe of Gilbert & George’ in Sculpture and Psychoanalysis, Ed Brandon Taylor, Ashgate 2006, pp139-159

Recent External/Invited Lectures:

Invited by the Modernist Studies Association (International Conference Nashville USA November 2008) to give a paper on the Klingender biography as part of the strand on Marxist Historiography.

‘Post-Conceptual British Portraiture’; Seminar hosted by the National Portrait Gallery and the Walker Art Gallery as part of the Liverpool Biennial 23rd November 2010:

One of the emerging artists showcased in Contemporary British Art has been selected to have work toured in India on behalf of the British Council.

Co-curated exhibitions:

Posters from the Marx Memorial Collection, 13th-16th September 2010, Exhibition Hall
TUC conference Convention Centre (formerly the G-Mex), Manchester.
Press coverage: ‘Polemical Provenance’ by Len Phelan, in Morning Star newspaper, September 13th 2010. See:

Co-editor and contributor [with Angus Pryor] of the MA/BA Fine Art End of Year Exhibition Catalogues [Kent University Fine Art ISBNs]  2008, 2009 and 2010.
Recent gallery texts and essays:

Online commissioned exhibition essay for ‘When the Fairy Tale Never Ends’ curated by Lara Pan, ford/PROJECT space, 57 W57 New York, January 20th- February 18th 2011

‘Inside Out - Imaging Illness and Abjection’, exhibition text for ‘Stoma!’ Solo Exhibition by Heidi Yssennagger, Park Plaza, Westminster, SE1, September  2010

‘Re-fashioning the Readymade – New Work by William Henry’ and ‘Paradigms for the Post-Conceptual: Paintings by Angus Pryor’ in Post-Conceptual Art Practice: New Directions – Part One pp4-15, West Wintergarden 25-40 Canary Wharf E14   19th April -28th May 2010

Art Histories, the ‘Canon’ and Globalisation: Re-framing the Discipline for Cultural Inclusion ArtArtArt, Issue 6, April 2009, pp 12-13

‘Metropolis & Streamline: Iconographies of Time & Light’, exhibition catalogue for Colin Booth, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury,  January 22nd – 3rd March 2009

In Preparation:
50 Key Texts (Routledge 2011) Co-editor and contributor with Dr Diana Newall, Research Fellow, Open University. Preface by Professor Clare Farago.

The Art of Revolution: Archive Posters from the Marx Memorial Library c.1917-1953 (co-editor and co-contributor with Dr John Callow). To be published by TUC Inc.  This arose from the Leverhulme funded archive project: ‘ Soviet, Comintern and Spanish Civil Posters from the Marx Memorial Library’ (2009/10).

Art History and Globalisation: Practices, Concepts and Issues (contracted, Routledge) will be collaboratively authored, co-edited and published around 2013/14 subject to study leave and
other commitments.

Grant is an External Reader for Routledge and Yale publications, has served as a AHRC Proposal Reviewer and as an External Examiner for Brighton University (2005-9). He is presently working on a major archive relating to the late Marxist Art Historian, Communist and Cineaste, Francis Klingender.

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Grant has teaching and research interests across contemporary art and visual arts related journalism and criticism; developing teaching approaches to the subject and the art histories and art historiography of the Cold War period.  In relation to contemporary British art, he is interested in what might be broadly termed a ‘post-conceptual’ generation – artists who have variously developed their practice since the later 1980s and 1990s, and how such work has been inflected by the legacy of Modernism and the neo-avant garde ideas of the 1950s and 1960s. Grant has ongoing teaching and research interests in extending art history to wider discipline communities, audiences and learning contexts.

Teaching & Student Support Awards:

• Barbara Morris Award for Excellence in Learning Support (team award) (2004)
• Shortlisted for the Isaac & Tamara Deutscher Memorial Award for the biography of Francis Klingender (2008/9)
• Co-recipient of the Faculty of Humanities Prize for Teaching Excellence in respect of Art History: The Basics (2009)
• Co-recipient of a HEFCE Challenge Fund Award to develop online learning professional development software  (2009)

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Grant has teaching and research interests across contemporary art and visual arts related journalism and criticism; developing teaching approaches to the subject and the art histories and art historiography of the Cold War period.  In relation to contemporary British art, he is interested in what might be broadly termed a ‘post-conceptual’ generation – artists who have variously developed their practice since the later 1980s and 1990s, and how such work has been inflected by the legacy of Modernism and the neo-avant garde ideas of the 1950s and 1960s. Grant has ongoing teaching and research interests in extending art history to wider discipline communities, audiences and learning contexts. These interests have been explored and developed in a range of publications including Contemporary British Art (2010), Understand Contemporary Art (2010) and Art History:The Basics (2008).

The period of the Cold War, which culminated in the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has defined modern European and International consciousness. It has also witnessed the making of a distinctive range of visual art and art history which has mediated both the ruptures and continuities of this period. Aspects of this legacy were explored in the recent international conference ‘Art Histories, Cultural Studies and the Cold War’, September 25th 2010 at the IGRS, London,  co-convened by Drs Thomas and Pooke.  A follow up strand will be held at the forthcoming 2011 AAH Conference strand in Warwick. A recently awarded Leverhulme Project Award supported archive-based research work on over 475 Soviet era, Comintern and Cold War posters at the Marx Library. This has provided a further opportunity to develop research into the artistic iconography, art history and the cultural politics of the period. An archive catalogue supported by the GMB Trades Union is forthcoming.

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Grant is interested in supervising research projects in areas of contemporary British art practice (UK and international), Cold War Cultures, Biography and Marxist Art Historiography and projects which seek to extend the communication of art history as an academic discipline to wider audiences. Even if you are unsure if your proposed area of interest may fit with the above, by all means get in touch. I will do my best to point you in the direction of academic colleagues who may be able to assist, even if I cannot!

Present supervised thesis titles include:
The Aesthetics of Borders: Statelessness, Mobility and Contemporary Visual Practice
A Critical Biography of Peter Fuller
Materiality and Process in Recent British Painting
Re-imaging the Family: Voyeurism in Neo-Expressionist ‘Family Portraits’ by Applebroog, Clemente, Colescott, Fetting and Fischl

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