Professorial Fellow

  • PhD Supervisor, Professorial Fellow
  • Research
Professor Anne Massey

Anne Massey is Professorial Fellow in Canterbury School of Art, Architecture and Design.

Bio

Born in the borders between England and Scotland, Anne Massey studied for a BA (Hons) in the History of Modern Art and Design at Newcastle Polytechnic, now Northumbria University. She then completed her PhD at the same place on the Independent Group. From there she worked as a visiting lecturer throughout the 1980s in the northeast of England and London. She then held leadership roles, specialising in building research cultures at Southampton Solent University, the Arts University Bournemouth, Kingston University, Middlesex University and the University of the Arts, London where she was Associate Dean Research. She joined UCA in 2019.

Research statement

Anne’s research covers 20th and 21st century architecture, art, craft and design in relation to (auto) biography, feminism and social class. Current research projects include two forthcoming edited volumes on Craft and Women’s Empowerment: Perspectives from the Global Majority with Harriet McKay (Bloomsbury, 2027) and Borders and Boundaries in Design History: Crossing, Contesting, Interrogating, co-edited with Victoria Kelley, Jessica Kelly, Cat Rossi and Kim Trogal (Bloomsbury, 2027). She is also working on a monograph, Class and the British Neo-Avant-Garde: Social Mobility at the ICA (MUP, 2027).

Anne Massey is best known for her work on the Independent Group and post-war British culture, including the groundbreaking The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945-59 (MUP 1995), based on her PhD. This was followed by Out of the Ivory Tower: The Independent Group and Popular Culture (MUP 2013).

She wrote the definitive chronicle of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, ICA (ICA 2014) where she was Research Fellow from 2010-2014 and a biography of its first female Director, Dorothy Morland: Making ICA History (LUP 2020). She co-edited Pop Art and Design (Bloomsbury 2017) with Alex Seago and co-curated Pioneers of Pop at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle in 2017.

She has also contributed to exhibitions at Dover Street Market, ICA, Kunstmuseum Wolfsberg, Munich Haus der Kunst, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Whitechapel Art Gallery and Tate. She has written articles and reviews for various academic journals including Art Monthly, BLOCK, The Burlington Magazine, Journal of Architecture and Culture and the Journal of Visual Culture. She has appeared on BBC television, including Who Do You Think You Are? In 2025.

Anne has contributed to every RAE and REF since 1996.

Anne’s research has been funded by the AHRC, British Academy, Henry Moore Foundation, Design History Society and the Paul Mellon Centre.

Research supervision

Anne is interested in hearing from research degree applicants whose proposals resonate with her areas of interest. Anne has supervised 16 PhDs to completion and served as an external PhD examiner in the UK and internationally. Her current PhD students are: 

  • Pierre Shaw, Critical Spatial Praxis: Creating Conditions and Pedagogies of Support.
  • Elihu Yair Salazar Epinosa, The insider-outsider: Reflecting on Snapshots of menswear and masculinities in Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris and London.

Students supervised with titles

  • Vanessa Paynton, The Ideal Kinema.
  • Jen Brown, The History of Do-It-Yourself.
  • Alia Al-Khalidi, Menstruation in Material and Promotional Culture: The Commodification and Mediation of Female Sanitary Products in Britain, 1880-1914.
  • Robin Jones, The Empire of Things: Sri Lanken Furniture.
  • Dennis Wardleworth, Building the Modern Corporation: Corporate Art Patronage in Interwar Britain.
  • Hannah Rumball, The Visual Culture of Quaker Dress. (AHRC funded)
  • Harriet McKay, Accommodating the Passenger: Interior Design for the Union Castle Line, 1945-77. (AHRC funded CDA with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)
  • Jessica Kelly, "Ardour of the Layman": The Architectural Review and Public Discussions of Architecture.
  • Lyanne Holcombe, Art, Luxury and Taste: The Design and Decoration of the Regents Palace Hotel London 1890-1939.
  • Paddy O’Shea, BOAC and the Interior of the Jet Aircraft, 1939-74.
  • Claudia Marfella, Aesthetic Values of the 1950s: Gillo Dorfles and Reyner Banham and the Activities of the IG and MAC.
  • Daniel Davies, Serving the Empire: P&O, Design, Identity and Representation, 1837-1969. (AHRC funded CDA with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).
    Adam Brinkworth Integration: A New Design Model for Apparel and Retail Environments (PhD by Public Works)
  • Adam Brinkworth Integration: A New Design Model for Apparel and Retail Environments (PhD by Public Works)
  • Zoe Hendon Looking Back and Looking Forward, the The Silver Studio Collection as heritage asset and educational resource, 1968-2018
  • Jing Guo, Lacquer as a skin: contemporary Chinese textile art
  • Guy Marshall-Brown, Fabricating Ruin Theory: Theorising Ceramic Practice as a Method to Reinterpret Ruin Theory

 

 

International Association of Art Critics, British Art Network and the Design History Society.

External examiner at BA (Hons) level for University of Derby, University of Westminster, Richmond University London, Norwich University of the Arts, Buckinghamshire New University, UCA and UEL. At MA Level at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. PhD examinations at the RCA, Manchester University, University of Pretoria, Edinburgh University, UAL, University of the Punjab, Reading University and Loughborough University. AHRC Peer reviewer 2005-11, and Strategic Peer reviewer 2011-13. QAA Subject Review Chair 2000-2 and QAA Subject Specialist Reviewer for Art & Design 1996-2000.

  • 2020 Awarded £2,000 by Paul Mellon Centre for British Art for Surrealism in England Revisited conference
  • 2019 Awarded £1,213 by Henry Moore Foundation for Dorothy Morland book
  • 2018 Awarded £500 by Design History Society for Design and Time
  • 2016 Awarded £750 by Design History Society for Pop Art & Design
  • 2014 Awarded £10,000 by Paul Mellon Fund for production of ICA book
  • 2012 Scouloudi Foundation, £850 for production of MUP book
  • 2011 AHRC, Collaborative Doctoral Award with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich on ‘Serving the Empire: P & O, Design, Modernity and Representation.’ Value c£60,000
  • 2011 Paul Mellon Fund, support for conference, BUNK: 60 Years of the Independent Group. Value £1,500
  • 2007 AHRC, Collaborative Doctoral Award with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich on ‘Accommodating the Passenger: Interior Design for the Union Castle Line, 1945-77.’ Value c£55,000
  • 2006 British Academy, £2,000 for Tate Britain conference: ‘Between Concept, Practice and Discipline: The Legacy of the Independent Group in the Digital Age.’
  • 2006 AHRC, £12.600 for ‘The Metallization of a Dream: Eduardo Paolozzi and the Independent Group, a case study in creative practice and theory in the digital age.’
  • 2004 AHRC, £4,976 for ‘Designing Liners: Interior Design Afloat’.
  • 2004 HEFCE £12,000 for Promising Young Researchers Scheme.
  • 2002 ADC-LTSN £2,600 for ‘Developing Creativity for the World of Work.’
Professor Anne Massey

Research outputs

All of Professor Anne's research outputs and activities are available on UCA's online research portal, UCARO.

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