The Spanish Gallery Collection Research Fellowships

The Spanish Gallery Collection Research fellowships are affiliated with the Zurbarán Centre and Durham University’s Residential Research Library Scheme and generously funded by the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH). The aim is to generate original scholarly research into the collection of the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland. The outcome of the fellowships will be a series of themed publications dedicated to specific artworks in the Spanish Gallery. These publications will be an invaluable resource for anyone who is looking for insight into Spanish art in general and the Spanish Gallery collection in particular.

The fellows appointed for the academic session 2022-2023 will be working on the portraits and sculpture in the Spanish Gallery collection:  

Dr Marta Cacho Casal is a historian of early modern art, specializing in Hispanic and Italian art, with a focus on the intersections between visual and intellectual culture. Her research interests include the life of artists, portraiture, the religious image, history of collecting and lately the notion of ‘ingenuity’. She holds a PhD, and an M.A. in the Renaissance, from the Warburg Institute, University of London. She has worked both in academia and in museums and has published widely on iconography, the education and sociability of artists, and collecting. Her monograph Francisco Pacheco y su Libro de retratos (Marcial Pons, Madrid, 2011) was awarded the first Alfonso Pérez Sánchez International Research Prize. Her work has been supported by several institutions including the Villa I Tatti (Harvard), The Drawings Institute at the Morgan Library and Museum, The Italian Academy, Columbia University, CRASSH, University of Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Research project at the Spanish Gallery: Portraiture, October 2022-June 2023.

Dr Holly Trusted FSA (formerly known as Marjorie Trusted) is co-founder and co-chair of the Public Statues and Sculpture Association and founding editor of the Sculpture Journal. A Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the University of Glasgow, she was previously Senior Curator of Sculpture at the V&A. She has lectured and published widely on sculpture, and has organised numerous international conferences on sculpture. Her book on German baroque sculpture is to be published by Brepols later this year.

Research project at the Spanish Gallery: Sculptures, October 2022-June 2023. 

Previous Fellows:

Dr Piers Baker Bates (The Open University), January-July 2022.Project: Spanish-Italian artistic relations in the collection of the Spanish Gallery.

Xanthe Brooke (Emeritus Curator of Continental European Fine Art, Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool), January-July 2022.Project: Murillo’s Portrait of San Fernando in Context