Postdoc position, Utrecht University
Seventeenth-century paintings are arguably the Netherlands’ most successful cultural export. The exhibition “The Dutch Masters” in Tokyo (2013) attracted the greatest number of visitors worldwide, similar displays followed in Cape Town, Beijing/Shanghai, Mumbai, and Abu Dhabi. As a postdoc researcher, you will examine the contemporary relevance of Netherlandish Old Masters in a globalising world. This is in the context of the research project ‘The Dutch Global Age’ (NWO-Vici).
Your job
You will complement our team, which currently consists of 3 PhD candidates and the PI. The team explores interactions between the arts of the Netherlands and the world beyond Europe in an attempt to establish how Netherlandish art has contributed to a global worldview. Whereas the PhD projects all take historical approaches (such as iconography and technical art history), you as a postdoc will focus on the recent past and contemporary period. The central research question is how and why paintings from the seventeenth-century Netherlands have been collected and displayed in museums in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the period 1975-2022. You will also contribute to an exhibition that connects the project’s historical questions to topical societal debates.
Your qualities
You bring the following qualifications:
-a completed PhD degree in art history, museology, heritage studies, or a related field;
-eagerness to publish international articles and connect scholarly research to societal debates;
-eagerness to work in a research team;
-good social and communication skills;
-an excellent command of English and excellent academic writing skills;
-(reading) knowledge of Dutch or one of the other languages relevant to the research project.