The focus of this research is the critically neglected comic strip work produced by the Irish painter Jack B. Yeats for a number of British publications between c. 1893 and 1917. The thesis seeks to identify and analyse the corpus of his previously unexamined work, positioning it in relation to contemporaneous media, entertainment and popular culture, as well as to the early development of the British comic. This thesis seeks to establish the key role that Yeats played in the early development of the form, during a key phase in its evolution. The claims that the thesis makes for Yeats as an important comic strip artist are based on extensive archival research, focused on comics such as Comic Cuts, The Big Budget and The Halfpenny Comic published in London by Alfred Harmsworth, Arthur Pearson and George Newnes respectively. He went through a number of identifiable phases in terms of his graphic style, producing a very substantial volume of work over the course of his career, largely in the form of series of strips featuring recurring characters, a number of which became very popular with the reading public. Yeats has almost exclusively been discussed in terms of his fame as a fine artist, despite the fact that his comics work was widely disseminated during his lifetime. Given that the work was once well known, as part of a novel and widely circulated mass medium, it is necessary to interrogate the absence of this material from art-historical accounts of his work and reassess Yeats as a comic strip artist. In Ireland there has been a tendency to articulate Yeats in terms of national identity, and thus avoid recognition of his engagement with, and contribution to, British popular culture. Issues regarding the mutual exclusivity of the ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural registers in which he operated has likewise resulted in the valorization of a particular area of his creative activity and the exclusion of the material acknowledged, discussed, and celebrated here. The repositioning of Yeats in relation to comic strip art has profound implications for the study of twentieth century Irish art generally, and for Yeats connoisseurship specifically, and proposes significant challenges to both, as well as making a contribution to British comics history.

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For archaeological or historic preservation to occur, there must be public support for it. This research examines historic and archaeological preservation in the Tampa Bay area of Florida through the use of selected case studies. It analyses opinions about archaeology and preservation from members of the general public and members of two groups focused on historic preservation and archaeology. Data were collected from interviews, surveys, archival research, and participant observation, and analyzed to determine the public's definition of archaeology, possible origins of people's interest in preservation, and the extent to which people's interest in either archaeology or historic preservation extends to the other. This research also looks at the context in which the study population is living. I look at the attempts at preservation in the area and the competing influences on those attempts, as well as the laws that affect the sites. I use the findings to make suggestions for increasing people's support of archaeology and preservation.

My thesis is an interpretive case study of the exhibition Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (Tate Modern, 1 February – 29 April 2001). It examines a variety of issues pertaining to the making of institutional modern and contemporary art exhibitions in a Western urban context today. It is concerned with exhibition studies’ methodology, the reciprocity between the art institution and the city, and the relationship between the art institution and the independent curator. With regards to methodology, I propose various readings of an exhibition that fall under two types of knowledge, namely visible and invisible knowledge. The former refers to all aspects of the exhibition that are seen in the public domain, while the latter considers not immediately accessible information about the exhibition, such as archival material and oral history. I also examine the mutual relationship between the city and the institution through the instrumentalization of the exhibition by city politics, and the correlative micro and macro effects. I thus link the exhibition to a passage from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, New Labour politics and the competition of cities in a worldwide urban network. Within that framework I analyse associated issues, such as London’s urban regeneration and cultural tourism, city branding, changing city demographics, the link between the institution, the city and governmental agendas, and the ‘world city’ race. Finally, I question the changing relationship between the art institution and the independent curator. I reflect on the advantages and limitations of curatorial practice in the context of that relationship by considering the exhibition as a platform for the concurrent expression of both personal and collective curatorial interests, and the exploration of canonical versus contemporary approaches. I conclude that an in-depth study of a contemporary exhibition on these grounds allows for important insights to be gained that contribute to the fields of curatorial and exhibition studies, as well as to urban theory.

<p> The cultural sensation known as the movida madrile&ntilde;a has been a subject of fascination since its origins in Madrid throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. This dissertation examines one of its most famous products, the journal <i>La Luna de Madrid</i> (1983-1988). This dissertation explores examples of illustration and photography throughout the journal's first seven issues, from November 1983-May 1984. Concentrating on the use of strategies from tourism promotion, this framework reveals how visual elements work with text to encourage readers to become tourists of modern Madrid. </p><p> Chapter One provides a background of how tourism images and messages have shaped perceptions of Spanish cultural identity from dictatorship to democracy, from the 1950s to the 1980s. Within this context, it is possible to understand the efficacy of tourism promotional tropes in portraying an attractive vision of Madrid in the journal's pages. </p><p> Chapter Two emphasizes how the movida represented the positive changes developing in Post-Franco Madrid, leading local and regional political leaders to employ this phenomenon in programs focused upon cultural revitalization and civic participation. This chapter argues that the movida not only appears as the main cultural tendency of interest within <i>La Luna de Madrid </i>, but that its treatment within the journal allows it to be viewed as an attractive tourism destination. </p><p> Chapter Three and Chapter Four provide close readings and in-depth visual analysis of certain repeated illustrated and photographic segments within <i> La Luna de Madrid</i> from November 1983-May 1984. By narrowing the research scope to these first seven months of publication, we can examine how patterns of viewing are established that encourage readers to contemplate selective historical and contemporary cultural trends in Madrid from the perspective of a tourist. </p><p> The combination of text and imagery at work in <i>La Luna de Madrid </i> reinforces the efforts of the various creative practices of the movida while giving readers opportunities to participate in this cultural scene. This dissertation argues that experiments with the visual and rhetorical tropes of tourism in <i>La Luna de Madrid</i> attempt to foster favorable impressions of the Spanish capital's past and present.</p>

This thesis examines art and architecture commissioned by three large-scale industrial corporations in Britain in the interwar period 1919-1939. The companies studies are the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later to become British Petroleum (BP), Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Unilever. The main focus of attention is on the headquarters office buildings constructed in London and their sculptural decoration. Attention is also paid to artwork used by Unilever on the covers of its in-house magazine 'Progress' and in its advertisements. A laboratory built by ICI near Manchester is also considered. The form and meaning of the works of art are examined using evidence of the relationships between the artists and the patrons, those within the companies who commissioned the works, as it is documented in the archives of the companies. Evidence is also taken from the published histories of the companies, the response of critics as revealed in contemporary publication, and the recent history of the appropriate genres and of the individual artists. Art history is currently undertaking a reappraisal of 20th century British art rejecting the view that the significant art was either, on the one hand, that which belonged to some canon of modernist work, or, on the other, only that which remained true to some view of what was traditionally British. This thesis makes a contribution to that re-appraisal. The approach of examining the mechanisms of patronage has not been applied extensively before to this period and place. In the process much new material about individual artists has been uncovered. In addition by suing the large-scale corporation as its framework, the study has thrown light on one of the major social changes of the period, the growth of a new professional class. This new class, whose habitat was the large bureaucracy, was developing an ideology of rationality and progress by technology which was to help shape 20th century attitudes and 20th century art.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of the History of Art, 2006. / Adviser: Bruce Cole.