The Victorian Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway holds what, in the 19th-century, was seen as one of the very best collections of modern art. The collection, acquired by the College’s founder, Thomas Holloway between 1881-1883, with a few exceptions, remains intact today and is almost entirely Victorian. To walk through the Gallery today, then, is to step back in time to the 19th-century.

In this talk, Dr Elena Cooper, a copyright historian and author of Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (CUP 2018), argues that being in the Gallery also brings copyright history alive. Copyright was a question that 19th-century artists really cared about, and many of the painters whose work is on show in the Gallery were vocal in 19th-century copyright debates which resulted in the first UK copyright statute to protect painting: the Fine Arts Copyright Act 1862. In exploring particular paintings in the Gallery, Dr Cooper will also reflect more generally on the relationship between copyright history and art history. What can art historians and copyright historians learn from each other, and what questions might future interdisciplinary research explore?

Dr Elena Cooper is Senior Research Fellow at CREATe, the Research Council funded centre for copyright law research at the University of Glasgow. She is author of Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (CUP 2018), the first in-depth and longitudinal history of copyright concerning the visual arts, which she launched with an event in the Victorian Picture Gallery in December 2018. Elena is also the author of two articles about the relationship between art history and copyright history published in The Burlington Magazine in 2021 and 2022. The latter articles are due to be released on an open-access basis this autumn, as CREATe Working Papers (available for free-download at create.ac.uk). Elena is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, and is also a member of the British Art Network, organised by The Tate to connect experts on British art.

This free talk is hosted by Royal Holloway culture team, booking is not required. Please contact artcollections@royalholloway.ac.uk for any enquiries.