Dr Warren Carter

Professional biography

His principal area of research is twentieth century American art, with a specific focus upon the medium of mural painting, and increasingly upon those done in Mexico after the revolution of 1910-20. This has resulted in publications in the Oxford Art Journal and more recently Third Text. He also has a special methodological interest in the social history of art, and the work of the radical art historian Meyer Schapiro, subjects on which he has published in the anthology that he co-edited, Renew Marxist Art History.

He has been a regular contributor of papers to the Association of Art Historians’ Conference as well as that organised annually by the journal Historical Materialism, and was one of the original conveners – and still is – of the long-running seminar series ‘Marxism in Culture’ that takes place at the Institute of Historical Studies on a regular basis. He has also given papers at the College Art Association Conference in Chicago; the International Mural Painting Conference in Guanajuato; the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht; the National Institute of Art History in Paris; and the Royal Academy of Arts in London amongst other places.

Publications:

Books:

Warren Carter, Barnaby Haran, and Frederic J. Schwartz (eds.), Renew Marxist Art History (London: Art/Books, 2013).

Book Chapters:

‘Towards a History of the Marxist History of Art’, Warren Carter, Barnaby Haran, and Frederic J. Schwartz (eds.), Renew Marxist Art History (London: Art/Books, 2013), pp. 14-28.

‘The Dialectical Legacies of Radical Art History: Meyer Schapiro and German Aesthetic Debates in the 1930s and 1940s’, Warren Carter, Barnaby Haran, and Frederic J. Schwartz (eds.), Renew Marxist Art History (London: Art/Books, 2013), pp. 64-77.

‘The Artist As Worker: Radical Responses to the New Deal Federal Art Projects’, Avigail Moss and Kerstin Stackemeier (eds.), Painting – The Implicit Horizon (Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie, 2012), pp. 23-38.

Exhibition Catalogues:

‘Introduction – The Legacy of Social Realism’, Ben Shahn and American Social Realism, The Chambers Gallery, 2009.

Journal Articles:

‘Painting the Revolution: Politics and Ideology in Mexican Muralism’, Third Text, no. 128 (May 2014), pp. 282-291.

‘Structure and Agency in New Deal Art: The Case of William Gropper’s “Construction of a Dam”’, Object, no. 6 (2003/2004), pp. 5-28.

‘The Public (Mis)use of Art: Radical Artists, Reformist States, and the Politics of Mural Painting in 1930s and 1940s America and Mexico’, Oxford Art Journal, vol. 23, no. 2 (2000), pp. 165-171.

Warren has contributed to the running of the OU level 2 module A226 Exploring Art and Visual Culture and at present is co-chair of a new level 3 module on the theme of art and globalisation which is now in production. He would be willing to supervise research students on topics that embrace a wide-range of themes in twentieth century American art; the subject of twentieth century muralism; as well as methodologies within the social history of art, with a particular emphasis upon Marxist approaches to the subject.