Lisa Skogh (MA 2006) is a visiting research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where she is pursuing a postdoctoral project on the “The Kunstkammer and the Early Modern Consort: Knowledge, Networks and Influences.” Concurrently, she is working on aspects of the Cabinet of Curiosities for the new permanent galleries “Europe 1600-1800” and on the Alexander McQueen exhibition, both opening at the V&A in 2015. Lisa completed her PhD at Stockholm University in October 2013. Her dissertation, “Material Worlds: Queen Hedwig Eleonora as Collector and Patron of the Arts,” was published by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences’ Centre of the History of Science in their book series.

What attracted you to the BGC’s Master’s program?

The BGC MA program was relatively new when I began, but it was already considered the best place to study material culture, design history and decorative arts. I had just received my undergraduate degree at Lund University in Sweden, where decorative arts and material culture were not really part of the art history curriculum. Hence, a group of international scholars recommended that I apply to the BGC. It was a privilege to be part of a small, young institution where students’ creative ideas were always taken seriously by the faculty and library staff. I was nervous during my telephone interview, but the day I was accepted was very happy for me. My entering class was the first to stay in the wonderful housing at Bard Hall, which was perfect for graduate students in New York City, especially those of us arriving from afar. I read the course catalogue, which was only in paper format at that time, with great admiration and pleasure; it was hard to choose—I wanted to take all classes offered!

What was your focus of study here, and how did you find yourself involved with it?

My emphasis on early modern collecting and patronage history was inspired by Professor Andrew Morrall. I was interested not only in the culture of early modern Italy, but also in northern and central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire from the late sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries. This has remained my primary focus ever since. However, I was also particularly keen on Far Eastern decorative arts, especially China and Japan. In light of that, I consider myself one of the luckiest students ever who took classes from Professors François Louis and Robert Moes, since that also led to the study trip of a lifetime—the Bard Term Abroad to China and Japan. I still consider this one of the most inspiring trips I have made, visiting with our professors sites and collections we might never otherwise have been able to see. While at the BGC, I worked for gallery director Nina Stritzler-Levine as an assistant on a number of exhibitions. I also worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, first as exhibition assistant for Helen C. Evans on Byzantium Faith and Power (1261-1557) and then fulltime as research assistant to Peter Barnet in the Medieval department and at the Cloisters. Upon my return to Stockholm I was employed by the Nationalmuseum, where I was put in charge of a large project to publish complete catalogues of the decorative arts collections. These were material-based, and I co-authored two catalogues of the silver collections, Swedish Silver 1500–1850 (2009) and European Silver 1500–1850 (2011), which can today be found in many libraries, including the BGC’s. During my doctoral studies I spent much time in archives in Sweden and in Germany, and as a visiting junior scholar at Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (now University College London). As a DAAD-fellow (German Academic Exchange Service), I pursued research at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.

What are your goals?

Currently, I am pursuing a postdoctoral project at the V&A in their research department, with the intention to turn this into my second book. I am driven to seeing to that creative, interdisciplinary and international research ideas get pursued and published, not just talked about. Hence, I was glad when I returned to New York last March to co-organize (with Professor Vera Keller) two interdisciplinary sessions on “The Varied Role of the Amateur in Early Modern Europe” at the Renaissance Society of America (RSA)’s annual conference. The papers presented are now being turned in to an edited volume. Next year, when RSA will be held in Berlin, I will co-organize two sessions on “The Material Culture of the Mines in Early Modern Europe,” which brings together scholars from many levels, disciplines, and geographical origins. In the autumn of 2013, I co-organized a large international conference hosted by the Swedish Royal Collections and Stockholm University on the theme “A Queen Emerges: Hedwig Eleonora and Baltic Court Culture.” I am co-editing the proceedings with Professor Kristoffer Neville (University of California, Riverside). I enjoy working closely with archives and collections and delight in challenging established views of the early modern period. I try to always keep an interdisciplinary approach to my work. It is thus a great honor to work at the V&A as part of their research department, a particularly creative scholarly environment where most things are possible. My years at the BGC were wonderful—they were tough but always highly enjoyable. To work and learn in such a small academic institution was an honor and a very good professional stepping stone to further academic and museum work. Indeed, academic colleagues in Europe are always interested in hearing more about the BGC—particularly at the V&A, with which it has collaborated for many years on projects. I very much look forward to keeping in touch with the BGC for many years to come.