A necessary burden: re-considering art history in the art school

After leaving art school in 1990, artist Mark Leckey did not make any artwork for the next ten years. Having studied Fine Art at Northumbria University (then Newcastle Polytechnic), Leckey said he was ‘turned off’ by ‘all the art world language’, leaving him wondering ‘whether he was clever enough to be part of that world’. Coming from a working-class background, Leckey has said that he felt excluded by what he considered to be the intellectual language required to become a practicing artist: ‘I felt like I was lacking knowledge, intellectual reasoning – just lacking’. This current research explores the introduction of the art history or contextual studies component to art degrees in the UK. Variously called ‘critical studies’, ‘art theory’ and ‘historical studies’, this written element of an art or design degree is generally understood as a necessary burden to the more creative components: a dry and objective add-on to a more embodied and affective studio practice. In addition to this, the format and delivery of the contextual studies element has remained largely unchanged since its implementation following the Coldstream Report in 1960. This work-in-progress research therefore asks what is the legacy and future of the introduction of art history to studio practice, and can theory be both liberatory and constrictive for art students? Lastly, how might we further integrate art history so that theory and practice are not taught and understood as a binary.
Louisa Lee is an art historian, writer and lecturer in contextual and critical studies at Buckinghamshire New University. In 2019, she completed her PhD in collaboration between the University of York and Tate, and from 2019-2020 was awarded two Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Paul Mellon Centre. She has published her writing on topics including conceptual art, art education and artists’ magazines in various journals and magazines including Art History, Art Monthly and Sculpture Journal, and has recently joined a research network exploring how art history is taught in the context of art schools.

This talk is part of the 2025-26 CRVC research theme, The Art of the Syllabus