Profile

Biography

BA (Oxford); MA, PhD (London), FSA

Tim Ayers is a Senior Lecturer in the History of Art, and a member of the Centre for Medieval Studies.

His research has focused upon British art and architecture of the later middle ages. A study of the stained glass of Wells Cathedral appeared in 2004 and one on the west front of Salisbury Cathedral in 2000. He is finishing a book on the stained glass of Merton College, Oxford, for which he was awarded a Mellon Senior Fellowship and an AHRC Research Fellowship in 2009–10. He edited the volume The History of British Art, 600-1600 (2008), in a series from Tate Britain and the Yale Center for British Art.

Tim is Vice-President of the International Corpus Vitrearum project, which is dedicated to the publication of medieval and later stained glass.

Departmental roles

• Chair of Graduate Studies
• Senior Management Team
• Research Committee
• Director of Medieval Art and Medievalisms Research School

Research

Overview

Tim has published on stained glass, sculpture and architecture in England between the thirteenth century and the end of the middle ages. After completing a book on the stained glass of Merton College, Oxford, he is planning a study on art and education in late medieval England. He is also interested in English medieval textiles, facades and their decoration, monumental narrative, and art in the medieval city. With colleagues in the History Department, he is working on a project on the history of St Stephen's Chapel in the Palace of Westminster.

Tim is Director of the Stained Glass Research School in the History of Art Department. His interests in this field include the understudied parish churches of York, but also extend beyond the middle ages to include the Gothic Revival and the international trade that led to the creation of museum collections from the mid-nineteenth century. 

Research group(s)

• Stained Glass Research School
  Director
• Medieval Art and Medievalisms Research School
• Sculpture Studies
• Centre for Medieval Studies

Supervision

In Progress

• Jasmine Allen, 'Stained Glassworlds: Stained Glass and the International Exhibitions, c.1851-1900' (jointly supervised with Jason Edwards)
• Zoe Dumelow, 'Visual Representations of Biblical Dreams in England, c.1200-1350' (jointly supervised with Jeanne Nuechterlein)
• Izzy Hampton, 'Lords of the North? Aristocratic identities in fourteenth century art and architecture'
• James Hillson, 'International linkage in Gothic Art and Architecture in English royal circles during 13th-14th centuries through the case study of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster (1292-1363)'
• Alison James, 'Gentry Masculinity in 15th-century Yorkshire (jointly supervised with Jeremy Goldberg)
• Eleanor McCullough, 'Praying the Passion: Laypeople's Participation in the Medieval Liturgy and Devotion' (jointly supervised with Jocelyn Wogan-Browne)
• David Reid, 'The history of the re-used twelfth-century glass of York Minster' (jointly supervised with Christopher Norton)
• Philippa Turner, 'Image and Devotion in Late Medieval English Cathedrals'

Publications

Selected publications

Books

• The Medieval Stained Glass of Merton College, Oxford, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) Great Britain, VI (Oxford: British Academy, in press)
• Ed. and contrib., The History of British Art, 600-16-- (London: Tate Publishing, 2008)
• The Medieval Stained Glass of Wells Cathedral, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) Great Britain, IV, 2 vols., (Oxford: British Academy, 2004)
  
• Co-ed. (with T. Tatton-Brown), Medieval Art and Architecture at Rochester, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions (2002), (Leeds: Maney, 2005)
  
• Ed. and contrib., The West Front of Salisbury Cathedral, A History and Study in Conservation (Chichester: Phillimore Press, 2000)

Articles

• 'Remaking the Rayonnant Interior: The Choir of Merton College Chapel, Oxford', in The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture, ed. A. Gajewski and Z. Opacic, Architectura Medii Aevi, I, Brepols: Turnhout, 2008, pp. 123-31
  
• 'A New Website for Medieval Stained Glass in Britain', The Journal of Stained Glass, XXVIII (for 2003), 2004, pp. 116-20.
  
• 'A West Country Glazier in the Fifteenth Century', The Journal of Stained Glass, XXVI (for 2002), 2003, pp. 10-16.
  
• 'Vitraux, retables et English Decorated Style, La Verrière orientale de l'église abbatiale de Dorchester, comté d'Oxford', in Représentations architecturales dans les vitraux, Colloque international, Bruxelles, Palais des Académies, 22-27 août 2002, Dossier de la commission royale des monuments, sites et fouilles, 9, Brussels, 2002, pp. 105-16.
  

Teaching

Undergraduate

• European Art of the High Middle Ages, 1050–1250
  
• Medievalisms: Constructing the Medieval in Western Art and Architecture, c.1800–1900
  
• Stained Glass in the Great Church, 1150 -1450
  
• Seeing and Being Seen: English Art in the 14th Century
  

Postgraduate

• Monastic Patronage of the Arts, 1080-1220
  
• Painting on Light: Stained Glass in the Medieval Tradition
  

External activities

Memberships

• Corpus Vitrarum Medii Aevi International
  Vice-President (2008-)
• Corpus Vitrarum Medii Aevi Great Britain, British Academy Major Research Project
  Secretary, Project Director and Committee (1991-)
• British Archaeological Association
  Council (1998-2002)
• Council for the Care of Churches
  Stained Glass Committee (1996-2005)
• Stained Glass Museum, Ely Cathedral
  Trustee (2002-10)
• Society of Antiquaries of London
  Fellow (2003-)
• Wells Cathedral
  East Window Advisory Group (2007-)
• York Minster
  East Window and Stained Glass Advisory Groups (2005-)
• York, Stained Glass Trust
  Trustee (2005-)