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Mr Joseph McBrinn

Lecturer in History & Theory of Design

Background

Born in Belfast, Joseph McBrinn was appointed Lecturer in Design History at the School of Art and Design, the University of Ulster in September 2004. He has studied and worked in Ireland, Scotland and France and before taking up his appointment in Belfast he taught at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and was recipient of the an Irish Research Council in the Humanities and Social Sciences Scholarship (funded by the Republic of Ireland's Higher Education Authority). He has also received awards from the Irish Georgian Society, An Chomhairle Éalaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He is a member of the Design History Society; Irish Association of Art Historians; British Society of Master Glass Painters; Decorative Arts Society: Victorian Society: William Morris Society; Crafts Council of Britain; Crafts Council of Ireland; and Crafts Northern Ireland. He regularly writes book and exhibition reviews for Circa and the Irish Arts Review

Education

Educated in Belfast Joseph McBrinn completed a M.A. at the University of Glasgow in 1994 and a PhD at the National College of Art and Design in 2006. The topic of his PhD was mural painting in Ireland between 1850 and 1950, reconsidering murals in ecclesiastical, private, commercial, civic and State interiors and work by professional, fine, amateur and trade artists and designers. The result was a national survey (including both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) was revealed a largely forgotten tradition in public art practice and patronage.

Research Fields

History and Theory of Art and Design (especially Applied Arts and 2-D and 3-D Design); History and Theory of Craft; Nineteenth to Twentieth-first century Design and Design Reform; Craft and Design Education; Contemporary Craft Practice and Theoretical Contexts.

Books Authored

Sophia Rosamond Praeger (1867-1954): Art and Life (forthcoming 2007)

Books Edited

Craft as union, craft as demarcation: The decoration of Belfast Cathedral, 1925-37, chapter in Sandra Alfoldy and Janice Helland (eds), Craft in Space: Architecture, Decoration, Interiors (Ashgate, forthcoming in 2007)

Arts and Crafts at the first Feis na nGleann', chapter in Eamon Phoenix, Pádraic Ó Cléireacháin, Eileen McAuley and Nuala McSparren (eds), Feis na nGleann: A Century of Gaelic Culture in the Antrim Glens (Ulster Historical Foundation: Belfast, 2005).

'The Feis na nGleann: Craftwork, Folklife and National Identity', Folk Life, forthcoming in 2007