Writing and Righting: Crime and Copying in Art History

Penelope Jackson

Research output: ThesisDoctoral Thesis

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Abstract

This PhD by Prior Publication represents a decade of researching and writing about crime and copying in the art world, which culminated in three publications. Each publication developed from earlier research. Location was a driver, though not exclusively, giving my work a strong leaning towards case studies particular to New Zealand and Australia. However, to examine and evaluate both art crime and art copying, it was essential to posit them within a global context. Crime and copying in the art world are universal tropes, interrelated, their lines of demarcation often blurred.

Researching and writing about these areas of art history has raised issues around the lack of resources and precedents for these subcategories, including the interdisciplinary approach of recording and analysis. Each publication presents material in original groupings: New Zealand’s catalogue of art crime, the role of women in art crime, and the copying of art (see Appendix A for book synopses). These unique approaches allow for new areas to be interrogated, creating their own individual frames of reference.

This thesis provides a commentary about the challenges, complexities, and consequences of researching and writing about art crime and copying in the context of my three publications. My objective was to catalogue and document not only art crimes but also the motivations for copying art to give each a greater art historical status and to encourage further research and discussions. Whether in scholarly publications, exhibitions, or educational texts and settings, crime is not spontaneously included within mainstream art histories. Copying is at times included but is rarely studied as a genre in its own right. Art crime has been considered and acknowledged as a serious and legitimate area of study since the early 1990s; however, even though it coexists alongside the world of art collections, art exhibitions, and the marketplace, it has been separated from mainstream art history.

Crime and copying are embedded in all art histories; whether acknowledged or not, both have a long, rich, diverse history. Art history is the study of iconography, content, style, and the messages that art can deliver, with less consideration given to an artwork’s provenance and physical properties, which can be more readily captured by studying crime and copying.

My research findings address three significant areas that have been overlooked by the literature to date. Due to this omission, art history has marginalised both crime and copying as having little significance or relevance. Crime and copying are worthy of greater attention, recognition, and inclusion within our national and international art histories; they exist alongside more descriptive and analytical art history discourses, and yet for a variety of reasons, including the difficulties in researching in this area, they are underacknowledged and underrepresented. This thesis explores this conundrum.

Original languageEnglish
QualificationDoctor of Philosophy
Awarding Institution
  • Charles Sturt University
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Bowker, Sam, Principal Supervisor
  • Wood, Susan, Co-Supervisor
Award date22 May 2023
Place of PublicationAustralia
Publisher
Publication statusPublished - 22 May 2023

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