About the BGC

Ph.D. University of Glasgow, History of Art
M.A. Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
M.A. University of Edinburgh, History of Art

My current research and publications are mostly concentrated in two areas: architecture and design in Britain and in Central Europe (primarily Hungary) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I have a particular interest in graphic design, interiors, and print culture, although my recent work has been concerned with public monuments and cultural transfer or emigration. My approach to this body of material is largely concerned with the relationship between contemporary theoretical and critical writings and the actual objects themselves. This dialectical relationship between texts and things lies behind the selected writings of the English architect-designer E.W. Godwin, which I edited with Juliet Kinchin (2005), and various articles and essays on Hungarian designers, such as Károly Kós, Lajos Kozma, and Laszlo Peri.

Selected Recent Publications:

• “Is Mr Ruskin Living Too Long?”: Selected Writings of E.W. Godwin on Victorian Architecture, Design and Culture (with Juliet Kinchin), 2005
• “Public Sculpture in Cluj/Kolozsvár: Identity, Space and Politics” in M. Rampley (ed.), Heritage, Ideology and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012
• “Frederick Antal and Laszlo Peri: Art, Scholarship and Social Purpose”, in Visual Culture in Britain, Summer, 2012
• “The Cult of Velazquez”, and “The Spanish Civil War”, in The Discovery of Spain, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2009
• ‘The Clique’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (on-line), Oxford, 2008
• “From ‘The Stones of Venice’ to ‘The Stones of Transylvania’: Károly Kós, Ruskin and the English Arts and Crafts Tradition”, in G. Ernyey (ed.) Britain and Hungary 3: Contacts in Architecture, Design, Art and Theory, Budapest: Hungarian University of Craft and Design, 2005

Watch an interview with Professor Stirton.

Read an interview with Professor Stirton about West 86th.