Professor Helen Hills
Professor of Art History

Profile

Biography

BA (Oxon), MA & PhD (Courtauld)

Helen Hills, Professor of History of Art, studied History at Oxford University before turning to History of Art at the Courtauld (MA with Distinction) & PhD. Her doctorate study of inlaid marble decoration in Sicily later became her first book. She taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and at the University of Manchester, UK before joining the History of Art Department at York in 2005.

My research focuses on the relationships between architecture, urbanism, religious devotion and spirituality, and gender and social class, with particular interest in baroque Naples. Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents, a study of the architecture and urbanism of aristocratic female convents in Naples was published by Oxford University Press in 2004, and was awarded the Best Book Prize in 2004 by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, USA. Rethinking the Baroque (Ashgate, 2011) offers essays by leading scholars from art history, philosophy, literature studies to reconsider the potential of ‘baroque’. I am currently working on a book focused on the Treasury Chapel of San Gennaro in Naples. In 2008 I was Visiting Professor in the Department of History of Art, University of Stockholm. I am co-founder of the Neapolitan Network which developed from an AHRC-funded Network and was established in 2010. It is an exchange and meeting point for scholars of Neapolitan culture from all over the world.

Recent awards include: AHRC-funded series of workshops focused on Neapolitan cultural history: Topography and History in Neapolitan Culture: Visual and Literary Representations of Naples c.1500-present (2008-9); AHRC-funded Matching Research Leave Scheme Award for 'Forms of Holiness in Baroque Naples' (2008- 09); British Academy Research Readership (2005-7); Balsdon Fellowship at the British School in Rome (Spring 2003); and a Getty Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities.

Departmental roles

Chair, Departmental Research Committee: 2006-7, 2008-present
Department Management Team 2008-present
Director of the Research School for Architectural History & Theory 2005-10
Library & Digital Images Chair 2006-08
Website Officer (including wholesale redesign of HofA website) 2005-07

University roles

University Research Committee (2006-10)
University Research Forum (2007- present)
Advisory Committee for Arts & Humanities for Promotions (2010- present)
Library Representative for History of Art (2006-8)
University Digitization Committee (2006-08)

Research

Overview

Baroque art and architecture
Holiness and materiality, especially 17thC Italian
Architectural theory
Baroque theory
Architecture and gender especially conventual architecture
Neapolitan baroque art and architecture

My research explores the inter-relationships between architecture, urbanism, holiness, and gender in early modern Italy, seeking to understand materiality, form and spatiality in relation to conflict and desire.

My recent book, Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-century Neapolitan Convents (Oxford UP, 2004), awarded the Best Book Prize (2004) by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (USA), considers aristocratic conventual architecture as metaphor for the aristocratic virginal body. Marmi mischi siciliani: invenzione e identità (Messina: BASM, 1999) sought to re-evaluate the intensely decorated marble inlaid chapels of baroque Palermo, by analysing them in relation to the political and social force fields in which they were produced. Thus I take issue with the long-standing (still persistent) view of southern baroque architecture as provincial and untutored imitation of the grandeur of Rome.

Rethinking the Baroque, an interdisciplinary volume of essays exploring baroque’s potential, was published in August 2011. It contains essays by leading scholars in art history, philosophy, literature and literary theory, and arose from an international conference I organized at York & Castle Howard in 2006.

I am co-founder of the Neapolitan Network , an exchange and meeting point for scholars of Neapolitan culture from all over the world, that developed from an AHRC-funded Network and was established in 2010.

Conferences Organized and Research Papers given

I also have a lively interest in contemporary architecture and urbanism and have published on contemporary art (see publications). I initiated a large research project, Cultural memory and architecture in post-industrial Manchester which received one of the first large grants ever awarded by the AHRB. My research focused principally on interstitial spaces, particularly underneath the railway arches as emblematic of post-industrial urbanity (see publications).

I directed the Architectural History and Theory Research School at York between 2005-2010 and organized Study days and symposia on ‘Monument’ (2006), ‘Space’ (2007), ‘Architecture & Holiness Beyond Liturgy’ (2008), ‘Niche’ (2010), ‘Precious Stones & other Materials’ (2009), involving speakers from art and architectural history, architectural schools, and Departments of philosophy, English literature, and history from York and beyond.

"Making Religion Matter? Questioning the Relationships between Religion and Art" .

I was responsible for bringing to York Professor Joseph Connors, Director Villa I Tatti for the Patrides Lecture; Professor Andrew Benjamin (Monash University , Australia) as Distinguished Visiting Speaker in January 2011 and Professor Alexei Lidov, Distinguished Visiting Professor 1 May-30 June 2011.

Current projects

Following my British Academy Research Readership (2005-07), I am now completing a monograph book on the spiritual topography of Naples. This book considers baroque architecture, reliquaries, altarpieces, book frontispieces, portraits of would-be saints, and sculpture, as forms of holiness. It works towards thinking architecture as productive rather than as instantiation of pre-formed idea; and towards architecture as involved with, but not to be explained solely in terms of, non-architectural historical processes. Seeking to understand forms of holiness in relation to socio-political, urban and governmental questions, but not to reduce an analysis of form to these factors, my book explores how architecture can best be understood in relation to holiness. It considers architecture as intersection of and exchange between extensive and intensive space in the case of the miracle-working and exuberantly decorated Cappella del Tesoro in Naples Cathedral.

Research group(s)

Grants

2012-14: British Academy Small Grant (£9875)
2008-09: AHRC Workshops Award ‘Exoticizing Vesuvius’ (Topography & Culture in Neapolitan History c.1500-present: Principal Investigator; with Dr M Calaresu, Cambridge
2008-09: AHRC Research Leave Scheme Award 2008-09
2005-07: British Academy Research Readership
2003: Balsdon Fellowship, British School in Rome
2002: AHRB Matching Leave Award
2000-02: ‘Urban Memory in Manchester: the Fabrication of the Post-Industrial’, AHRB, £79,296. With Mark Crinson & Frank Salmon
1998-99: ‘Convent architecture, gender, and power’, J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Arts and the Humanities
1998-99, Research Fellowship at the Centre Canadien d'Architecture. Awarded but declined
1997: ‘Mapping Early Modern Italian Cities: Maps as Inscriptions of Power’, Review Committee for Grants from the Endowment Committee of the College for Scholarly Publications and Performances, UNC-CH

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from students wanting to undertake research in areas related to my research interests (especially baroque architecture, Italian baroque sculpture & painting, relationships between holiness & architecture or genders /sexualities and urbanism / architecture).

Prospective PhD candidates may like to consult the History of Art Department's funding webpage, the Italian Cultural Association's website "Il Circolo", The British School at Rome and ResearchResearch.com for details of available scholarships.

Useful early modern architecture site:http://earlymodernarchitecture.com/

In addition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill I served on the PhD committees and supervised the successful completion of the PhD Baroque Examinations of a further 14 students.

In Progress

Phil Thomas, 'John Coates Carter (1859-1927): architecture and a sense of place in South Wales’
Martin Nixon, ‘The Baroque Towns built in the Val di Noto Area of Sicily 1700-1780’. Martin has been awarded the 2011 John Fleming Prize for research in Eastern Sicily.
Bogdan Cornea, 'Towards the Sublime: Images of Flaying in the art of Jusepe de Ribera'
Josephine Neil, 'Is a visual apophaticism at work in Spanish and Neapolitan Counter-Reformation Painting, and how did it influence the way divine presence and action was perceived?' Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London. April 2012-present. PhD co-supervisor with Prof. Ben Quash.

Awarded

Elizabeth Chew, PhD on 'Female art patronage and collecting in 17th-century Britain' (case studies of Anne Clifford Sackville Herbert, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke & Montgomery (1590-1676) and Aletheia Talbot Howard, Countess of Arundel (1584-1654). (advisor 1995-99) Examinations passed 1995; PhD awarded Dec 1999. Now Curator at Thomas Jefferson Museum at Monticello, USA.
Alex Pilcher, 'Mythologies of Foundation in Renaissance Florence, c.1450-c.1550', Feb 1998-Sep 1998 (PhD co-supervisor). PhD submitted Oct 98. PhD awarded 1999.
Alice Sanger, 'Women of Power: Studies in the patronage of Medici Grand Duchesses and Regentesses 1656-1650'. Feb 1998-May 1999 (submitted) (PhD co-supervisor ). PhD awarded 2000. Now temporary Lecturer in Art History, University of Manchester.
V. Whitfield, 'Portraiture of industrialists in 18thC Britain', temporary supervisor during illness of Prof. Marcia Pointon, Nov 00-Jul 01. PhD awarded Jun 02.
Alessandra Pompili, 'An insula in Ostia'. Aug 03-Feb 05 (PhD co-supervisor with Prof. R Ling). Awarded PhD Jul 07.
Charlotte Poulton, 'The representation of music in early modern Italian painting' (Part-time USA) Viva Examination Oct 2009: PhD awarded with minor corrections (External Examiner: Professor Robert Kendrick, Department of Music, University of Chicago).
In addition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Hills served on the PhD committees and supervised the successful completion of the PhD Baroque Examinations of a further 14 students.

Publications

Full publications list

Books:

Rethinking the Baroque , ed. Helen Hills (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011). ^{Read reviews}^{, Review from the Burlington Magazine (PDF , 166kb)} ^{Rethinking the Baroque flyer (PDF , 69kb)‎‌‎} ^{Rethinking the Baroque webpage}
Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-century Neapolitan Convents . Oxford University Press, 268 pp.;44 b. & w. & 10 col. plates. 2005.
Awarded the Weiss / Brown Award in support of outstanding works of scholarship of European culture pre-1700, 2003, The Newberry Library, Chicago; Winner of the Best Book Prize, 2004, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, USA.
^{Read some reviews} ^{Invisible City webpage}
Representing Emotions: New Connections in the Histories of Art, Medicine, and Music, ed with P. Gouk, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
^{Read some reviews}
Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe, (Aldershot : Ashgate, 2003).
^{Read some reviews}
Fabrications: New Art and Urban Memory in Manchester, ed. with N Rudd & M Crinson (Manchester : UMiM, 2002).
Marmi mischi siciliani: invenzione e identità (Inlaid polychromatic marble decoration: invention and identity) trans. AnnaVio, Messina: Archivio Storico Messinese (Scholarly monograph series), 1999.

Articles & Chapters (Refereed*)

Hills, H., ‘La Cappella del Crocifisso nella Cattedrale di Monreale', in Madonna, M.L., & Trigilia, T., (ed.), Barocco Mediterraneo: Sicilia, Lecce, Sardegna, Spagna, Madonna, M.L., & Trigilia, T., (ed.), Rome: Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, pp.61-76, 1992.

*Hills, H., ‘Iconography & Ideology: Aristocracy, Immaculacy and Virginity in Seventeenth-century Palermo', Oxford Art Journal, Vol.17, no.2, 1994,16-31.

*Hills, H., ‘The Immaculate Conception in Seventeenth-Century Palermitan Iconography', Archivio Storico Siciliano, ser.IV, vol.X, 1994, 181-230.

Hills, H., ‘Commonplaces: the Woman in the Street: Text and Image in the work of Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger', in Mills, S., (ed.), Language and Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, New York: Longman, 240-256, 1995.

Hills, H., ‘The Making of an Art-Historical Super Power?’, Oxford Art Journal, 18:1, 1995, 137-140.

*Hills, H., ‘Spanish Influence on Sicilian Baroque Architecture', Ricerche di Storia dell'Arte, 58, 1996, 65-95.

*Hills, H., ‘Mapping the Early Modern City', Urban History, 23, 1996, 145-170.

Hills, H., ‘Villa Palagonia in Bagheria near Palermo', Daidalos, 28, June 1998, 34-44.

*Hills, H., ‘Centri e Periferie: Decorazioni ecclesiastiche in marmi intarsiati nella Palermo del XVII secolo', Arte Cristiana, 1996, 405-419.

Hills, H. ‘The Road Not Taken', Oxford Art Journal, 20:1, 1997, 95-99.

Hills, H., ‘Convents in the city; choirs in the convents: Aristocratic female convents and urbanism in early modern Palermo and Naples' in Trigilia, L., (ed.), Annali del Barocco in Sicilia: Pompeo Picherali: Architettura e Città fra XVII e XVIII Secolo, Rome, 61-76, 1998.

*Hills, H., ‘Cities and Virgins: Female Aristocratic Convents in Early Modern Naples and Palermo', Oxford Art Journal, vol.22, no.1, 1999, 29-54.

Hills, H., ‘The Convent in the City; the Choir in the Convent: Female convent churches in Baroque Palermo and Naples', in de Moura Sobral, L. & Booth, D., Struggle for Synthesis: The Total Work of Art in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Proceedings of Conference, Braga 1996, vol. I, Lisbon: Ministerio da Cultura, 177-194, 1999.

Hills, H., ‘Monasteri Femminili aristocratici a Napoli e a Palermo nella prima età moderna e la "Conventualizzazione" della Città', in Fiume, G., (ed.), Il santo patrono e la città: San Benedetto il Moro: culti, devozioni, strategie di età moderna, Venice: Marsilio, Venice, 68-80, 2000.

Hills, H., ‘Architecture as Metaphor for the Body: the Case of Female Aristocratic Convents in Early Modern Italy', in Durning, L., and Wrigley, R. (ed.), Gender & Architecture: History, Interpretation, Practice, Chichester & New York, John Wiley & Sons., 67-112, 2000.

Hills, H, ‘Half-Forgotten Streets: Architecture and Amnesia in Manchester’, in Crinson, M, Hills, H., & Rudd, N., (ed.), Fabrications: New Art and Urban Memory in Manchester, Manchester: UMiM, 32-39, 2002.

*Hills, H., with <Tyrer, P., ‘The Fetishized Past: Post-industrial Manchester and Interstitial Spaces', Visual Culture in Britain, vol.3, no.2, 2002, 103-118.

Hills, H., ‘Theorizing the relationship between architecture and gender in early modern Europe’, in Hills, H. (ed.), Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 3-23, 2003.

Hills, H, ‘Deciphering the Hieroglyphics of the Modern Metropolis', Oxford Art Journal, vol.26 n.2, 2003, 181-186.

*Hills, H., ‘The Veiled Body: within the folds of early modern Neapolitan convent architecture’, Oxford Art Journal, vol 27 n.3, 2004, pp.269-290.

*Hills, H., ‘“Enamelled with the Blood of a Noble Lineage”: Tracing Noble Blood and Female Holiness in Early Modern Neapolitan Convents and their Architecture’, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, 73:1, 2004,1-40.

= P. Gouk and Helen Hills, ‘Towards Histories of Emotions’, in Gouk P & Hills, H. (ed)., Representing Emotions: New Connections in the Histories of Art, Music and Medicine, Aldershot: Ashgate,15-34, 2004.

Hills, H., ‘Alberti and Affetti: Architecture and Edification’, in Gouk P & Hills, H. (ed)., Representing Emotions: New Connections in the Histories of Art, Music and Medicine, Aldershot: Ashgate, 89-108, 2004.

Hills, H., ‘What’s In a Relic?’, Oxford Art Journal, vol. 28 n.1, , 2005, 119-124.

Hills, H., ‘Architecture and Spiritual Life in Tridentine Naples’, in Valerio, A., (ed.), I Luoghi della Memoria: Istituti religiosi femminili a Napoli dal IV al XVI secolo, FPV per la Storia delle Donne: Naples, 35-51, 2006.

Hills, H., ‘Architecture of Difference: The Secret of the Religious Architectural Body’, in Gender, Religion, Human Rights in Europe, Rome: Herder, 245-262, 2006.

Hills, H., ‘Too Much Propaganda’ Oxford Art Journal, vol. 29 n3, 2006, 446-452.

Hills, H., ‘Indeterminacy and Architectural History: Deterritorializing Cosimo Fanzago’, field, vol. 1, September 2007, http://www.field-journal.org

Hills, H., ‘Nuns and Relics: Spiritual Authority in post-Tridentine southern Italy’, in ed. Cordula van Wyhe, Female Monasticism in Early Modern Euurope, Ashgate, 2008, 11-39.

*Hills, H., ‘The Baroque: Beads in A Rosary or Folds in Time’, Fabrications – Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians ANZ, 17:2, 2008, 48-71.

*Hills, H., ‘Demure Transgression: Portraying Female “Saints” in post-Tridentine Italy’, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Fall 2008, vol.3, 153-208.

*Hills, H., ‘The Face is a mirror of the soul: frontispieces and the production of sanctity in post-Tridentine Naples’, Art History, 31/4, 2008, 547-574.

*Hills, H., ‘« Négociation » du pouvoir en Italie post-Tridentine : gender, architecture, et puissance’, in Femmes de pouvoir et pouvoir des femmes dans l’Occident medieval et moderne, eds. Armel Nayt-Dubois & Emmanuelle Santinelli-Foltz: Lez Valenciennes n.41-42, 2009, 151-162.

Hills, H., ‘Abitare l’architettura istituzionale: alla ricerca del sacro domestico nei monasteri post-tridentini italiani’, in ed. Candace Smith, Soror Mea Sponsa Mea: Arte e musica nei conventi femminili in Italia tra Cinque e Seicento, Bologna: Il Poligrafo, 2009, 23-48. Winner of the 2010 SSEMW (USA) Arts and Media Project Award competition

Hills, H., ‘The Housing of Institutional Architecture: searching for a domestic holy in post-Tridentine Italian convents’, in eds. S Cavallo, S Evangelisti, Domestic and Institutional Interiors, Ashgate, 2009, 119-152.

Hills, H., ‘ “The Face is a mirror of the soul”: Frontispieces and the Production of Sanctity in Post-Tridentine Naples’, in Art and Architecture in Naples, 1266-1713, eds. Cordelia Warr & Janis Elliott, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 125-151.

Hills, H., ‘How to Look like a Counter-Reformation Saint’, in Exploring Cultural Histories: Essays in Honour of Peter Burke, M. Calaresu, F. De Vivo, J.P. Rubies (eds), Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, 207-230.

*Hills, H., ‘”The Face is a mirror of the soul’: Frontispieces and the production of sanctity in post-tridentine Naples’, in Art and Architecture in Naples, 1266-1713, eds. Cordelia Warr & Janis Elliott, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 125-151.

Hills, H., ‘Urbanism in Siena: A Polite Tale of Patronage, Profit and Power’, Art History, Summer 2010, 551-554.

Hills, H., 'The Uses of the Image: W.G Sebald and T.J Clark', Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies, 2012,57-80.

All other publications

Hills, H., ‘Bramshill House, Hampshire', Country Life, Part I Oct.10, 1985, pp.1011-1016 & Part II, Oct 17, 1985, pp.1095-1099.

Hills, H , ‘The Art and Architecture of Sicily', Blue Guide to Sicily, London: A& C Black, New York: WW Norton, 1988, 12-27.

Hills, H, Review of L Nochlin, The Politics of Vision and B Taylor's Eve & the New Jerusalem Women's Art Magazine No.46, pp.26-27

Hills, H., ‘The Art and Architecture of Sicily', Blue Guide to Sicily, revised version, A& C Black, New York: WW Norton, 1993, 14-30.

Hills, H., ‘Andrea Pozzo’, ‘Angelo Italia’, ‘Baldassare Longhena’; ‘S Maria della Salute, Venice’; ‘the Quattro Canti, Palermo’, International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, London & Chicago: St James’ Press, 1993, pp.524-527; 598-9; 693-4; 713-16.

Hills, H., ‘Palermo: History & Urban Development’ , Encyclopaedia of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist Art: Vol. 2: Macagnino to Zucchi, Grove Encyclopaedia of European Art, London: Macmillan, 2000, 840-6 (& 6 other entries).

Hills, H, ‘Form Follows Funding’, review of Amelia Jones (ed.), The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, Routledge: London & New York, second edition, 2010,

Reviews of Single Academic Books:

I have reviewed numerous books for a range of journals including:

Church History, Sixteenth century Studies, Journal of European History, Women's Art Magazine, The Times Higher Education Supplement, The Sociological Review, Word & Image, Art History, Oxford Art Journal, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Renaissance Quarterly, Burlington Magazine, Journal of Early Modern History.

Exhibition Reviews:

1994: `The Baroque in Portugal Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC', Eighteenth Century Studies, May, pp.487-490

Curation:

Co-organizer & Co-curator, Fabrications: New Art and Urban Memory in Manchester. Included commisioning 6 new pieces of art from 6 contemporary artists. Cube Gallery, Manchester. 11 September - 2 November 2002.

Recordings

'The Baroque', In Our Time with Melvin Bragg, BBC Radio 4, 20 November 2008.

Teaching

Undergraduate

A group of upper level students at Mount Grace Priory during Helen's Architecture, Gender & Sexuality module.

^{A group of upper level students at Mount Grace Priory during Helen's Architecture, Gender & Sexuality module.}

I have taught at all levels at the Universities of Keele and Manchester in the UK, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the USA, and Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. In May 2012 Helen organized an event 'Art History: What next after the "Old Europe"? White Bull & Blue Skies" with external and internal speakers. Poster (PDF , 569kb). Programme (MS Word , 165kb)‌.

BA Undergraduate modules include:

The City & the Subject in Early Modern Europe
Architecture, Gender and Sexuality
Seeing the City
Architectural Theory
Architecture & Memory
Historiography & Theory
Introduction to Architecture
Masculinities & Femininities in Baroque Art
Space as Property and the Properties of Space

Postgraduate

MA modules include:

Rethinking the Baroque
Advanced Problems in Baroque Art
Redeeming Matter
Space as Property and the Properties of Space