AN VAN CAMP

Acting Keeper of Western Art & Curator of Northern European Art

An Van Camp

Contact
Email: an.vancamp@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
ORCID: 0000-0002-5733-7750

University of Oxford webpages
St Cross College

Biography

An is responsible for the Ashmolean Museum’s Dutch, Flemish and German prints, drawings and paintings. She joined the Western Art Department at the Ashmolean in September 2015.

She is involved in teaching and research at the University of Oxford (Faculty of History) and is the Dean of Degrees at St Cross College. An is also responsible for the documentation and digitisation of the graphic collections held at the Western Art Department. In this capacity she trains and supervises staff, interns and volunteers working on the collection database, in particular works on paper. 

Previously An worked in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, first as Cataloguer of the Dutch and Flemish prints before 1900 (2006–10) during which she created almost 15,000 records for the Museum’s online database) and later as Curator of Dutch and Flemish Prints and Drawings (2010–15).

At the British Museum she curated displays on the graphic works of Adriaen van Ostade and David Teniers the Younger (2010), and Hercules Segers (2012). In 2015 she co-curated a major international exhibition on metalpoint drawings, 'Drawing in Silver and Gold', shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the British Museum in London.

An was also the Lead Curator of eight Asahi Shimbun Objects-in-Focus Displays at The British Museum (2014–15).

Before she joined the British Museum she studied History, Archaeology, Art History and Museum Studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and at University College London.

An is a member of the editorial board of two journals, Print Quarterly and Master Drawings. She was part of the Steering Committee of the 2024 HNA Conference, held in Cambridge and London. She was Chair of the Print Curators’ Forum (2019–2023). Between 2010 and 2017. An was a member of the programme committee of CODART (International Network for Curators of Art from the Low Countries) and continues to be a regular member.

In 2013 she was the laureate of the Christoffel Plantin Prize which recognises a Belgian living abroad who is active in the cultural, artistic, scientific or social sector and whose work contributes to the prestige of Belgium abroad

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As the curator of Northern European Art, An's research is largely focused on art made in the modern-day regions of Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany.

Since she joined the Ashmolean in 2015 she has curated a number of displays and major exhibitions: curator of 'Sensation: Rembrandt's First Paintings' (16 September–27 November 2016, Ashmolean), about Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings featuring allegorical scenes of The Five Senses; curator of ‘Rembrandt in Print’ (2019–2021, Liverpool/Bath/Hitchin/Cork), a touring exhibition showcasing 50 of the Ashmolean’s outstanding Rembrandt prints; co-curator of ‘Young Rembrandt’ in collaboration with Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, The Netherlands (27 February–1 November 2020, Ashmolean), a major overview of the first ten years of Rembrandt’s career.

She also redeveloped the Dutch Gallery (Room 45) into the Dutch and Flemish Gallery in order to include the Ashmolean’s Flemish paintings from the 17th century.

Most recently, she collaborated with Museum Plantin-Moretus (Antwerp, Belgium) on a major exhibition, ‘Bruegel to Rubens’ (23 March–23 June 2024). This was the first time drawings created in the 16th-17th centuries in the Southern Netherlands were presented according to the function they played in the artist’s studio and beyond: as sketches and copies, as designs for other artworks, and finally as independent works made in their own right. The exhibition also focused on the networks and collaborations between the artists, and their international character; all aspects which are also treated in her book published on the occasion of the exhibition.

In 2022–23, An led a research project on the Ashmolean’s early-modern German drawings, funded by the Getty Foundation’s The Paper Project and the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership. Together with guest curator, Mailena Mallach, over 300 drawings were researched, catalogued, and presented on a website including a 15-minute documentary and an interactive webpage, featuring some highlights and new research findings (including a newly-discovered drawing by Albrecht Dürer).  

As an ongoing project, she is compiling an exhaustive collections catalogue of the Ashmolean’s Dutch and Flemish drawings (around 1,500 sheets) as these were last published by K.T. Parker in 1938. She has a great passion for old master prints and is currently researching the print collection of Francis Douce, which was bequeathed to the University of Oxford in 1843 and transferred from the Bodleian Library to the Ashmolean Museum in 2003.

An does occasional teaching for the History Faculty, in particular the History of Art department, and the Ruskin School of Art. Her focus in on the materiality, as well as the design and making of objects.

She supervises Extended Object Essays for first-year History of Art students. 

In the past she has taught tutorials for Visiting Students in the field of early-Modern paintings from the Southern Netherlands, in particular for St Catherine's College. 

Art History; Art history, theory and criticism; Art Theory and Criticism; European History (excl. British, Classical Greek and Roman); Fine Arts (incl. Sculpture and Painting); Visual Arts and Crafts

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