Profile

Biography

 BA (University College London), MA (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London), PhD (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

Caroline Levitt specialises in French art and literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She completed her PhD, supervised by Prof. Christopher Green, in 2009. Her thesis, Guillaume Apollinaire and André Breton: Encounters in the Avant-Gardes, examined the relationship between Apollinaire and Breton as manifested through their involvement and interest in artistic practices such as graffiti, illustration, cinema and the collection and construction of objects. Caroline’s research and teaching interests range from the involvement of artists in architecture and media other than oil painting, to the interaction of artists and poets through book illustration,  studio spaces and Surrealism.

Departmental roles

Research

Overview

Caroline’s current research interests and activities include:

•           Relationships between art and poetry, c. 1850-45, in particular illustrated books of the period. Caroline is currently writing a book provisionally entitled Illuminating and Altering, focusing on artists’ incidental ‘illustration’ of (or doodling over) pre-published texts, including Auguste Rodin on Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal, Louis Marcoussis on Guillaume Apollinaire’s Alcools, and Louis Soutter on Le Corbusier’s treatises.

•            Links between architecture and poetry, architects and poets. Caroline recently co-convened a highly successful international conference at The Courtauld Institute of Art, entitled Intersections: Architecture and Poetry.
  
  An innovative publication resulting from the conference is planned, to include academic essays, architectural photographs and multimedia content.

•           Surrealist art, literature and film. Caroline regularly attends and contributes to events organized by the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies (Tate, Manchester and Essex).

•        The art, architecture and writing of Le Corbusier, especially the links between Le Corbusier and Surrealism and Le Corbusier’s poetry. Caroline is planning an edited volume on Le Corbusier and Surrealism as part of Ashgate’s series ‘Studies in Surrealism’.

Publications

Full publications list

Forthcoming: ‘Monumentality and Marginalisation: Guillaume Apollinaire’s Le Poète assassiné and the illustrations of Raoul Dufy, Pierre Alechinsky and Jim Dine’, Nottingham French Studies, (Special Issue on ‘Art in French Fiction’), Autumn 2012. 

Forthcoming: ‘Apollinaire, Derain and L’Enchanteur pourrissant: The Decay and Multiplication of Gothic Meaning’ in: Cleaver L., Lepine A. (eds), Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture , Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2012.

Forthcoming: Entries on Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools and André Breton, The First Surrealist Manifesto for The Literary Encyclopaedia ( www.LitEncyc.com), Autumn 2011.

Forthcoming: ‘Modern Art, 1900-45’ in: The Art Museum, London: Phaidon, Autumn 2011.

Forthcoming: ‘From the Walls of Factories to the Poetry of the Street: Inscriptions and Graffiti in the Work of Apollinaire and the Surrealists ’, Papers of Surrealism, Issue 9, Summer 2011.

Book Review: Constantin Brancusi, by Sanda Miller (Reaktion Books, 2010). Slavonic and East European Review, Apr 2011.

Exhibition Review: Mondrian/De Stijl

Teaching

Undergraduate

Autumn 2011: The Making of a Modern Style, 1889-1933

Spring 2012: The Modern Metropolis: Representing the City in France and Britain, c. 1840-1920

External activities

Invited talks and conferences

Caroline continues to teach at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she has taught BA courses on: Techniques and meanings in 20^th century Art; Art in France 1900-45; Le Corbusier: Opposing Categories; and an MA option on Art, Artists and Twentieth-century Modernism in Europe (co-taught with Prof. Christopher Green)

Caroline regularly contributes to relevant conferences. She also lectures for The Courtauld Institute of Art’s public programmes, and teaches a course on their Summer School.