Celina Fox

Celina Fox (born 4 May 1947) is an independent scholar specialising in the history of London in the 18th and 19th centuries.[1] She held the role of Keeper of Paintings, Prints and Drawings at the Museum of London.[2]

Celina Fox
Born(1947-05-04)4 May 1947
OccupationHistorian
EducationUniversity of Cambridge
University of Oxford
SubjectsHistory of London

Education and scholarship

Fox read history at Newnham College, Cambridge, graduating in 1969.[3] She was a recipient of a Kennedy Scholarship in the same year, which involved a spell studying at Harvard University.[4] She earned her DPhil from Oxford University in 1974, with a thesis titled Graphic Journalism in England during the 1830s and 1840s.[5] She was a recipient of a Wingate scholarship in 2004.[6] She received a research support grant from the Paul Mellon Centre in 2005 for research in the US and Sweden on the art of industry.[7] Fox was a scholar at the Yale Center for British Art in 2012.[8] She received a fellowship scholarship from the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale, in the same year for the Northern Grand Tour.[9]

Career

Fox was a founding curator for the Museum of London in the 1970s.[10] In 1982, together with Professor Aileen Ribeiro, she organised an exhibition on the eighteenth-century masquerade. In 1987, as the museum's Keeper of Paintings, Prints and Drawings she wrote Londoners, a substantial book to accompany an exhibition of the same name. The exhibition was the first to “concentrate entirely on the inhabitants of the metropolis as they have been depicted in paintings, drawings and prints throughout the ages.”[11] By c.1990 she was assistant director of the museum. In 1992 she was the coordinator of the exhibition London: World City, 1800-1842 that was staged at the Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Villa Hügel, Essen, the largest British loan exhibition ever staged in Germany.[12][13]

Fox has worked on museum developments in Russia[14] and Germany. She was a member of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Panel of the National Lottery Heritage Fund.[15] In 1993, Fox made the final four for the position of Director for the Courtauld Institute Galleries.[16]

Blue Plaques Panel

Fox was vice-chair for the Blue Plaques Panel[17] of English Heritage.[18] In 2013 she spoke out about the panel's budget being cut by 50%, saying “I fear Thurley’s proposals will lead to a dumbing down of the blue plaques scheme, by eroding the numbers and quality of those who assess the candidates.”[19] She resigned the following year, along with Dr Margaret Pelling, in protest, citing that the scheme was “being dismantled and its previous achievements discredited.”[20]

Awards
  • 2011 – Peter Neaverson Award for The Arts of Industry in the Age of Enlightenment[21]
  • 2012 – Historians of British Art (HBA) Book Award for exemplary scholarship on the period before 1800[22]

Publications

Author
  • Education (1977) with P and G Ford, pub. Irish University Press, Dublin
  • Masquerade (1983) with Aileen Ribeiro and Valerie Cumming, pub. Museum of London, London
  • Londoners (1987) pub. Thames & Hudson, New York
  • Graphic Journalism in England during the 1830s and 1840s (1988) pub. Garland, New York
  • The Arts of Industry in the Age of Enlightenment (2009) pub. Yale University Press, New Haven, in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
  • Designs (2009) with John Minshaw and Paul Redman, pub. Frances Lincoln, London

Editor, contributor
  • The Victorian City: Images and Realities (1973), pub. Routledge, London
  • London’s Pride: the glorious history of the capital’s gardens (1990) pub. The Museum of London, London
  • London – World City, 1800-1840 (1992) editor, author of introduction, pub. Yale University Press, New Haven
  • Silver: History and Design (1997), pub. Harry N Abrams, New York
  • An Oxford companion to the Romantic Age: British culture, 1776-1832 (2001), pub. Oxford University Press, Oxford
  • Elegant Eating: Four hundred years of dining in style (2002), pub. V&A Publications, London
  • London 1753 (2003), pub. British Museum Press, London
  • The Wisdom of George the Third: Papers from a Symposium at the Queen’s Gallery (2004), pub. Royal Collection, London
  • Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to 2000 (2004) pub. Oxford University Press, Oxford
  • Auctioneers who made history (2014), pub. Hatje Cantz, Stuttgart

Other writing

Fox has contributed to the following journals and magazines:

Other

In 1979 Fox was a founding committee member of The Thirties Society (latterly The Twentieth Century Society).[36]

In 1993, she spoke out against the choice of Charles Saumarez Smith as the new director for the National Portrait Gallery. In reference to the overlooking of the then deputy director Malcolm Rogers she said it showed “an extraordinary lack of judgment and is mischievously wasteful of talent. I don’t know any other country that would behave like this when there was an obvious candidate with no marks against him.”[37]

In 1999, Fox suggested Nelson Mandela for Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth, saying that he was “universally thought of as a major figure of the 20th century.” She also suggested moving the statue of George IV, as “a less heroic figure is hard to imagine.”[38]

Fox joined Simon Jenkins for several of his research tours when he was compiling England's Thousand Best Houses (2004)[39] and England's Thousand Best Churches (2009).[40]

She is on the editorial board of Print Quarterly[41] and a trustee of the Harlech Scholar's Trust.[42]

References
  1. Tyrkus, Michael J (2012). Contemporary Authors Vol 314. Detroit, USA: Gale. p. 167. ISBN 978-1414460963.
  2. Lord Charteris (April 1984). "The work of the National Heritage Memorial Fund". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (Vol. 132 No. 5333 ed.). London, UK: Royal Society of Arts. p. 337.
  3. "Don't Miss Telling your story". newn.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  4. "Full list of Kennedy Scholars". www.kennedytrust.org.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  5. "Fox, Celina". collections.britishart.yale.edu. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  6. "Record of Wingate scholars" (PDF). archive.wingate.org.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  7. "Grants and Fellowships awarded". www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  8. "Scholars". britishart.yale.edu. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  9. "Visiting fellows and travel grant". walpole.library.yale.edu. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  10. Rebecca Bertero. "a changing political landscape for museums". issuu.com. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  11. Fox, Celina (1987). Londoners. London, UK: The Museum of London. p. 274. ISBN 1414460961.
  12. Fox, Celina (1992). London – World City 1800-1840. New Haven, USA: Yale University Press. p. 7. ISBN 0300052847.
  13. John Russell (11 October 1992). "A witty portrait of London is served up in Germany". The New York Times. New York, USA. p. 207.
  14. Margaret Bergen (1997). "Strategies for Survival: St. Petersburg Museums in the Market Economy". The Urban Age (Vol. 4 No. 4 ed.). London, UK: The World Bank. p. 16.
  15. "Miscellany". International Journal of Heritage Studies (Vol. 4 No. 2 ed.). London, UK: Intellect Ltd. 1998. p. 4.
  16. "In the frame". The Daily Telegraph. London, UK. 13 April 1993. p. 17.
  17. Colleen McDonnell. "Plaque dedicated to our dancing hero, Dame Ninette". richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  18. Mark Benham (1 February 2000). "The unknown sculptor gets a plaque after 60 years". Evening Standard. London, UK. p. 23.
  19. Tim Walker (19 August 2013). "Blue plaque blues for Thurley's people". The Daily Telegraph. London, UK. p. 8.
  20. Celina Fox. "Implacable blue plaque cuts". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  21. "The Harlech Scholar's Trust". industrial-archaeology.org. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  22. "The Harlech Scholar's Trust". historiansofbritishart.org. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  23. Celina Fox (April 2015). "Frames and Fortune". House and Garden (Vol. 70 No. 4 ed.). London, UK: Condé Nast. p. 121.
  24. Mooney, Martha T (1980). Book Review Digest, Vol 76. New York, USA: H W Wilson Company. p. 726. ISSN 0006-7326.
  25. Ribiero, Aileen (2002). Dress in eighteenth Century Europe, 1715-1789. New Haven, USA: Yale University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0300091516.
  26. Rinehart, Michael (1989). RILA. Williamstown, USA: Getty Art History. p. 22. ISSN 0145-5982.
  27. Rinehart, Michael (1989). RILA. Williamstown, USA: Getty Art History. p. 79. ISSN 0145-5982.
  28. "Index to Volume CXXXIII". The Royal Society of Arts Journal (Vol. 133 Index ed.). London, UK: Royal Society of Arts. November 1985. p. 1.
  29. "Print Quarterly". printquarterly.co.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  30. Celina Fox (May 1978). "The Development of Social Reportage in English Periodical Illustration during the 1840s and early 1850s". Past and Present (Vol. 5 ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 90–111.
  31. Celina Fox (February 1977). "Plymouth and Plymouthians". Urban History (Vol. 5 ed.). London, UK: Urban History Association. p. 172.
  32. Celina Fox (Summer 1995). "Battle of the Railings". AA Files (No. 29 ed.). London, UK: Architectural Association School of Architecture. pp. 50–60.
  33. "Rehanging Reynolds". www.britishartstudies.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  34. Celina Fox (10 September 1987). "Going Dutch in style". Evening Standard. London, UK. p. 34.
  35. Celina Fox (4 December 1999). "Your very own Bohemian rhapsody". The Independent. London, UK. p. 39.
  36. Stephen Games (19 December 1979). "A cartoon that paints too unfair a picture". The Guardian. Manchester, UK. p. 12.
  37. Robin Stringer (7 October 1993). "Art world storm as new gallery chief is named". Evening Standard. London, UK. p. 159.
  38. Valentine Low (13 July 1999). "The empty plinth debate". Evening Standard. London, UK. p. 10.
  39. Jenkins, Simon (2004). England's Thousand Best Houses. London, UK: Penguin. p. xxxiii. ISBN 0141006250.
  40. Jenkins, Simon (2009). England's Thousand Best Churches. London, UK: Penguin. p. xxxv. ISBN 978-0140297959.
  41. "Print Quarterly". printquarterly.co.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  42. "The Harlech Scholar's Trust" (PDF). www.new.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
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