Hilary Robinson has been since 2017 Professor of Feminism, Art and Theory, and Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training: Feminism, Sexual Politics, and Visual Culture at Loughborough University, UK. Her teaching and research focuses on feminist art theory. Her publications include Visibly Female: Women and Art Today (1987); Reading Art, Reading Irigaray: The Politics of Art by Women (2006); Feminism-Art-Theory 1968-2014 (2015); The Art of Feminism: Images that Shaped the Fight for Equality 1857-2017 (2018) (with Amy Tobin & Lucy Gosling); A Companion to Feminist Art (2019) (ed. with Maria Elena Buszek.)
Prior to joining Loughborough, her academic career was in Belfast, Northern Ireland; Pittsburgh PA, USA; and London, England. At the University of Ulster (1992-2005) she taught art theory to studio students. She became Research Co-ordinator and subsequently Head of School for Art & Design. She also gained her first Chair, as Professor of the Politics of Art. In 2005 Hilary was appointed Dean, College of Fine Arts and Professor of Art Theory and Criticism, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, USA. In Pittsburgh she was a board member of The Andy Warhol Museum; Quantum Theatre; Silver Eye Centre for Photography; Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council and The Mattress Factory Museum. She headed the Creative Entrepreneurs research project, to retain artists in post-industrial Pittsburgh. She moved back to the UK in 2012 to take up the position of Dean, School of Art and Design, Middlesex University for a four-year term. She was on the advisory board for the AHRC-funded research project Black Arts and Modernism, led by Prof. Sonia Boyce, 2015-2018.
Initially she trained as a painter, graduating with a BA Fine Art, University of Newcastle upon Tyne; she also has an MA in Cultural History from the Royal College of Art, London, with a thesis on body image and sexuality in art by women; and a PhD in Art Theory from the University of Leeds (supervisor: Griselda Pollock), with a thesis on the implications of the work of philosopher Luce Irigaray for women artists.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland