Anne is a specialist in German Modernism and the Blue Rider, and her research explores intersections between early-twentieth-century abstraction, the psychology of visual perception, and the history of science. Her doctoral thesis, awarded in 2024 from the University of Edinburgh, examines Wassily Kandinsky’s early works within the context of studies in optics and spatial theories that were espoused by such experimental psychologists as Hermann von Helmholtz, Wilhelm Wundt, and Theodor Lipps. A selection of her findings are published in her article ‘As far as the eye can perceive: overlooked notes on optics by Kandinsky’Ìý¾±²Ô The Burlington Magazine (February 2026).
Anne has recently contributed to the exhibition catalogues for German Expressionism (The National Gallery, 2027) and Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider (Tate Modern, 2024). Her first edited volume, Culture at the Margins: Gender, Migration, and Coloniality in German Modernism, 1900–1930s, will be published in 2027. She is also co-editor for the Peter Lang book series on German Visual Culture.
Following her Teaching Fellowship, Anne will begin a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship for her project ‘Experimental Dimensions: Abstract Art and Visual Perception’ at the University of Glasgow.
Teaching
The Courtauld:
BA2/GD: Thinking with Things: Theories of Materiality and Material Culture (Teaching Fellow, Spring 2027)
BA1: Techniques and Meaning in 20th Century Art (Teaching Fellow, Autumn 2026)
MAHA: Experiencing Modernism: Utopia, Politics and Times of Turmoil, 1900–1950 (Teaching Fellow, Autumn 2026)
BA2/3: Learning from Paris: War, Internationalism, Postmodernism (Associate Lecturer, Spring 2025)
Edinburgh College of Art:
MSc.: Critical Episodes in Twentieth-Century German Art: Cultural Exchanges and Divisions (Interim Course Organiser, Spring 2025)
MA (Hons.): Expressionism, Dada, Bauhaus and Beyond (Interim Course Organiser, Spring 2025)
BA2: Reason, Romance, Revolution: Art from 1700 to 1900 (Tutor, Autumn 2024)
The Courtauld Short Courses Programme:
Summer course: Postwar German Art and the Question of National Identity (June 2026)
Showcasing Art History series: The Sea as Romantic Metaphor (January 2026)
Education
2024: PhD History of Art, University of Edinburgh (‘The Harmonised Whole: Wassily Kandinsky and Principles in Visual Perception from Jugendstil through Der Blaue Reiter, 1896–1914’)
2015: MA History of Art, awarded with Distinction, 91ÖÆƬ³§ (‘Wassily Kandinsky and Gestalt Laws of Visual Perception: The Science of Art versus the Art of Science’)
2013: BA, summa cum laude with Honors in Art History, University of Mary Washington (Honors thesis: ‘Looking Out, Looking In: Windows and the Impressionists’)
Publications
Edited volume, Culture at the Margins: Gender, Migration, and Coloniality in German Modernism, 1900–1930s (Peter Lang, forthcoming).
‘Franz Marc, the Blue Rider and the Rebirth of Art’, in German Expressionism, exh. cat. (The National Gallery, 2027).
‘Constructing a Psychological Gesamtkunstwerk: Kandinsky’s Notes from 1910 to 1914,’ in Total art and the avant-garde: The Gesamtkunstwerk re-worked, ed. Sascha Bru and Kate Kangaslahti (Manchester University Press, 2027).
‘As far as the eye can perceive: overlooked notes on optics by Kandinsky,’ The Burlington Magazine 168, no. 1475 (February 2026): pp. 34-43.
‘Abstracting Empathy: Wassily Kandinsky and His Artistic Interpretations of Visual Perception,’ in Empathic Engagements, ed. Susan Barahal and Elizabeth Pugliano (Palgrave, 2024), pp. 91-107.
‘Destination: Schwabing, Munich’; ‘Paris, The Splendours and Miseries’; ‘Murnau: Places of Encounter and Discussions’, in Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider, exh. cat. (Tate Modern, 2024), pp. 34-5, 38-41.
Conferences
‘Ideational Migrations: Jacoba van Heemskerck’s Abstract Woodcuts for Der Sturm’, European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernist Studies Conference, Stockholm, September 2026.
‘Between Renewal and Destruction: Affect in the Art of Franz Marc’, ‘The Avant-Garde, Affectively’, MDRN Lab, University of Leuven, February 2026.
‘Sensing, Perceiving, and Knowing in Modernism’, session co-chair, Association for Art History 51st Annual Conference, University of York, April 2025.
Academic Awards and Fellowships
Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship (2027–2030)
British Academy Early Career Researcher Network, Development Fund (Winter 2026)
Association for Art History research grant (Winter 2026)
The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies Scholar-in-Residence (September 2024)
Leverhulme 91ÖÆƬ³§ Abroad Studentship, Munich (October 2022 – October 2023)
DAAD Fellowship, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich (Autumn 2021)