JOHN CHU

Keeper of Western Art

Portrait of John Chu

Contact
Email: john.chu@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
ORCID: 0000-0001-7966-2610

University of Oxford webpages

Biography

John Chu is Keeper of the Western Art the Ashmolean Museum, and Garlick Professor and Professorial Fellow at Balliol College.

Prior to his appointment at the Ashmolean in 2026, John was a Senior National Curator of Pictures and Sculpture at the National Trust. He had responsibility for the research, presentation, development, and programming of historic fine art in over 100 collections across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Prior to the National Trust he was at Tate, working in the Research Department cataloguing works on paper in the JMW Turner Bequest.

He has taught courses on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European art at the University of Reading and the Courtauld Institute of Art..He also took his doctorate at the Courtauld - 'The Fortunes of Fancy Painting in Eighteenth-Century' - on the genre paintings of Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.

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John's research focuses on 18th-century British art and visual culture, with particular emphasis on Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. He is especially interested in experimentations with artistic genre and media in this period of rapid social change, colonial expansion, and commercial growth; and the relationship between art practice, theory and the market. Within the collaborative environment of museums, his research in this area has deeply intersected with the material and technical study of paintings, often in dialogue with conservation.

Having worked for the National Trust for over a decade, a central strand of John's research has explored how art operates within the historic house, examining histories of collecting, display, and interpretation, and the ways in which works of art acquire meaning in domestic and heritage contexts.

A growing area of interest is in the homes of collectors of contemporary art in 20th-century Britain, and the transition of private collections of modern art into the national heritage. He was co-investigator on a project on this topic 'Representation, Resistence, Exchange' in 2022/23 funded by the John Fell Fund (Oxford University of Oxford Press).

The Courtauld Insitute of Art, University of London

  • Associate Lecturer, 'Hogarth in London', 1st-Year BA History of Art, 2015/16, 2016/17

University of Reading

  • 'Art and Society in 17th- and 18th-century Europe', 3rd-Year BA History of Art, 2015/16

Art History; 18th-century British Art; 19th-century British Art; Western Art; JMW Turner; Joshua Reynolds; Thomas Gainsborough

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