Jane Simpkiss

Career summary

Jane Simpkiss has recently been appointed Curator at Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park. Prior to this she was the Fine Art Curator at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum (LSAG&M) from 2020 to 2023. Whilst at LSAG&M, she curated a number of exhibitions and displays focusing on British Art including Outgrowing: Flowers and Female artists, 1700-now; Modern Mercia: Post-war art in Coventry and Warwickshire; 1945-1970 and Reunited: Shannon, Ricketts and their Greek Vase. She has also co-curated the exhibition Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries: British Art 1880-1930.

Before working at Leamington, Jane undertook a yearlong internship at the Royal Collection Trust in the paintings department and was a research assistant at Royal Museums Greenwich and Dulwich Picture Gallery. In these roles, her research focused on the importance of fashion in 18th-century portraiture and on the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, respectively. She completed an MA in curating at the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA in History at Durham University.

Areas of interest / research

Jane’s research focuses on the work of British female artists and the depiction of women in art, particularly during the Long Eighteenth Century.

She is currently researching the self-portraits of Angelica Kauffman and the relationship between her representation and those of her male contemporaries.

Jane is particularly interested in highlighting the hidden histories in portraiture. She is currently researching Charles Shannon’s portrait The Man with the Greek Vase, 1916 and the significance of this work in illustrating the artist’s relationship with his partner Charles Ricketts.

Details of books/publications relating to your work on British portraiture

• Subjects and Objects: Re-Uniting Shannon, Ricketts and their Greek Vase, Understanding British portraits Annual Seminar 2022
• A Woman of Distinction? A comparative analysis of Angelica Kauffman’s self-portraits with those of her male contemporaries British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies 51st Annual Conference 2022
• ‘Fashioning Gainsborough’s Women’, Athena Art Foundation, 2022 (athena art foundation — Fashioning Gainsborough’s Women)
• Alice Craigie and Jane Simpkiss, ‘Portrait of a Lady, 1608 Jacobean oil painting attributed to Robert Peake the Elder, Painting Pairs, Art History and Technical Study’ Courtauld Institute of Art History, 2018