A one-day conference exploring genre as a critical framework for the study of painting
Thursday, 6 August 2026, 1.45pm to 7pm
Painting genres structure artistic practice, shape reception, and inform institutional frameworks. Yet within art history, the study of genre has often been overshadowed by iconographic and formalist approaches. This one-day conference brings together scholars whose papers place genre at the centre of the analysis of painting, foregrounding it not merely as a classificatory device, but as a critical category through which artistic production, reception, and historiography can be re-examined.
Conference programme:
13.45 – Welcome and introduction by Sofya Dmitrieva
14.00-15.00 – Panel 1: Definitions
* Emma Barker (The Open University), Defining genre painting
* Miles Fletcher (University of Cambridge), Een Algemeen Schilder: Landscape, Technology, and the History of Depiction in England and the Low Countries, 1649–1702
15.00-16.00 – Panel 2: Institutions
* Anastasia Skoybedo (University of Cambridge), Landscape Painting within the Soviet Hierarchy of Genres. The case of the Leningrad Landscape School
* Alyse Muller (Columbia University), The Genealogy of the Marine Genre in France
16.00-17.00 – Coffee break
17.00-18.00 – Panel 3: Taste
* Daniel Sobrino Ralston (National Gallery), The Rise and Fall of a Genre in Second Empire Paris
* Vittoria Cervini (Royal Collection Trust), From Carlton House to Buckingham Palace. Seventeenth-century genre paintings in George IV’s collection
18.00-19.00 – Panel 4: Reimaginings
* Tom Zille (Mucha Foundation), Queering the Conversation Piece
* Sarah Hegenbart (Heidelberg University), Towards Transcultural Pictorial Genres
Attendance is free of charge, and no registration is required. A light lunch and refreshments will be provided. Further details can be found via the following link: https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/[…]/painting-and-genre-conference
Venue:
St Edmund Hall - Old Dining Hall
Old Dining Hall St Edmund Hall Queen's Lane Oxford Oxfordshire OX1 4AR United Kingdom
Venue details:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/x57S3jXhurLJNvoM7
Department: St Edmund Hall (College)
Organiser: Sofya Dmitrieva