Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies

Photo of Dr Meredith Hale

Dr Meredith Hale

Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture (E&R)

M.M.Hale@exeter.ac.uk

2491

01392 722491

Overview

I received my PhD from Columbia University in New York and was the Speelman Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, from 2009 to 2018. I joined Exeter as a lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture in 2019. I am a specialist in Netherlandish art of the early modern period (c. 1550-1700). My research interests include: early modern print culture, particularly political satire and international print markets; the 'Glorious Revolution' and reception of Netherlandish art; and issues related to materiality, material agency, and the reception of works of art. My first book, The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) and the Glorious Revolution, was published by Oxford University Press in September 2020.

For a discussion of my book with Ian Hislop on Radio 4, see ‘Who’s De Hoeghe?’, part 9 of Ian Hislop’s Oldest Jokes (aired 1 Feb 2024); https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vsjb

I was awarded a Research Fellowship from The Leverhulme Trust (2023-24) to write my second book on a series of oil sketches by Anthony van Dyck (Boughton House, Northamptonshire) for his famous print series known as The Iconography. For this project see: https://lcvs.exeter.ac.uk/research/projects/object-affect/

I am Principal Organiser of the Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) conference, ‘Britain and the Low Countries: cultural exchange past, present & future’, London and Cambridge (10-13 July 2024); https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hna-conference-2024-tickets-851692634597?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Research

My research focuses primarily on early modern visual and material culture. My first book, The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) and the Glorious Revolution (OUP, 2020), documents one of the most important moments in the history of printed political imagery, when the political print became what we would recognise as modern political satire. Contrary to conventional historical and art historical narratives, which place the emergence of political satire in the news-driven coffee-house culture of eighteenth-century London, I locate the birth of the genre in the late seventeenth-century Netherlands in the contentious political milieu surrounding William III’s invasion of England known as the Glorious Revolution. The satires produced between 1688 and 1690 by the Dutch printmaker Romeyn de Hooghe (1645–1708) on the events surrounding William III’s campaigns against James II and Louis XIV establish many of the qualities that define the genre to this day: the transgression of bodily boundaries; the interdependence of text and image; the centrality of dialogic text to the generation of meaning; serialized production; and the emergence of the satirist as a primary participant in political discourse. De Hooghe’s satires are seen as critical sites of cultural influence and negotiation which both reflected and helped to construct a new relationship between the government and the governed. His subjects are remarkably modern: the dangers of absolutist regimes; the fear of amalgamation in a larger union; the insecurity of trade; and the fear of foreign influence and cultural dilution.    My current book project, for which I have received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship,  focuses on a unique group of paintings comprising no fewer than forty-one grisaille oil sketches. These oil sketches, painted on small oak panels as models for the print series known as the Iconography (Boughton House, Northamptonshire), came from the studio of one of the most famous artists of the early modern period, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), and have never before been studied as a group. For a description of this project, see: https://lcvs.exeter.ac.uk/research/projects/object-affect/

Research collaborations

I am a member of the collaborative research group, Eco-Brain: Cognitive Humanities Environmental Approaches to Climate Change (University of Exeter and Duke University).

I was Principal Investigator for the AHRC Networking Grant, ‘The Power of Print: Dutch Propaganda for a new Russia’ (2013-2015), a collaboration with the University of Amsterdam and the State Hermitage Museum which examined Tsar Peter I's use of Dutch models and technology to establish a school of Russian etching in 1698: http://translatingcultures.org.uk/awards/research-networking-awards/the-power-of-print-dutch-propaganda-for-a-new-russia/

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Supervision

I welcome research proposals on any subject related to my research interests and expertise, including but not limited to:

  • Netherlandish art, c. 1500-1700
  • Early Modern print culture 
  • Political propaganda and satire
  • Issues related to materiality and material agency
  • Romeyn de Hooghe
  • Anthony van Dyck

Research students

Fangxu Sun, 'The political discourse of Chinese visual parody art after the reform and opening-up' (Primary supervisor, second supervisor Dr Yue Zhuang)

Jia Liu, 'Western influences on the development of early-modern print culture in China – political satire in late Qing Period' (China Scholarship Council-funded, Primary supervisor, second supervisor Dr Yue Zhuang)

Yining Fu, 'Architectural Heritage Conservation in China: Historical Development from 1840-1949' (working project title, China Scholarship Council-funded, second supervisor in 2023-2024 for Dr Sabrina Rahman, primary supervisor Dr Yue Zhuang)

I-Hsiu Chung, Unveiling the Enigma: The Mermaid's Tale as a Gateway to Exploring Dutch-Taiwanese Cultural Encounters in the Seventeenth Century and the Role of the 'Other' in Western Literature (MA)

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2010 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2002 |

2023

  • Hale M, Lindley PG. (2023) Nationalism, Medievalism and the Study of Sculpture. Prior and Gardner's Account Reassessed, Shaun Tyas.

2022

  • Hale M. (2022) Romeyn de Hooghe, Caricature, and Modernity, Paper Knives, Paper Crowns: Political Prints in the Dutch Republic, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, 147-168.

2021

  • Hale MM. (2021) LOTTERIES, ART MARKETS, AND VISUAL CULTURE IN THE LOW COUNTRIES, 15TH-17TH CENTURIES, PRINT QUARTERLY, volume 38, no. 1, pages 67-70. [PDF]
  • Hale M. (2021) Review of Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture in the Low Countries, 15th-17th Centuries, Print Quarterly, volume 38, no 1, pages 67-70.

2020

2019

  • Hale M. (2019) Review of Henk van Nierop, The Life of Romeyn de Hooghe 1645-1708. Prints, Pamphlets, and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age, Early Modern Low Countries, volume 3, no 1, pages 149-151.
  • Hale M. (2019) ‘“Rubens only whispers”: the reception of the Cambridge bozzetti for the Triumph of the Eucharist tapestry series’, Tributes to David Freedberg: Image and Insight, Harvey Miller, 491-504.

2017

  • Hale M. (2017) Eileen Cooper A Woman's Skin, Royal Academy of Arts.

2016

  • Hale M. (2016) The production of history: Famiano Strada’s De Bello Belgico, Tributes to Professor Jean Michel Massing: Towards a Global Art History, Harvey Miller, 91-104.
  • Hale M, Massing JM. (2016) The Speelman Fellowship and Netherlandish art in Cambridge, Cambridge and the Study of Netherlandish Art The Low Countries and the Fens, Brepols, 15-45.
  • Hale M. (2016) Hollands hollende koe: the political satirist and moral conviction, Cambridge and the Study of Netherlandish Art: The Low Countries and the Fens, Brepols, 169-193.
  • Hale M. (2016) Cambridge and the Study of Netherlandish Art The Low Countries and the Fens, Brepols.

2014

  • Hale M. (2014) Amsterdam broadsheets as sources for a painted screen in Mexico City, c. 1700, The Burlington magazine, volume CLVI, pages 356-364.

2010

  • Hale M. (2010) Review of The Art of the Printmaker, Print Quarterly, volume 27, no 3.
  • Hale M. (2010) Review of The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650, Print Quarterly, volume 27, no. 3, pages 287-288.

2008

  • Hale M. (2008) Drie koningen, een haan en een ezel: De spotprenten, Romeyn de Hooghe de verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Waanders, 100-111.

2007

  • Hale M. (2007) Political Martyrs and Popular Prints, Selling and Rejecting Politics in Early Modern Europe, Peeters Publishers, 119-134.

2006

  • Hale M. (2006) Willem III op papier. Politieke Prentkunst van Romeyn de Hooghe in dienst van de Stadhouder, Het Jaarboek Oranje-Nassau, pages 174-192.

2002

  • Hale M. (2002) Political Prints by Romeyn de Hooghe at Stanford University, Cantor Arts Center Journal, pages 38-47.

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External impact and engagement

The thesis of my 2020 book, The Birth of Modern Political Satire, was the subject of part 9 of Ian Hislop’s Oldest Jokes on Radio 4 (aired 1 Feb 2024). For my discussion with Ian Hislop, see ‘Who’s De Hoeghe?’, see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vsjb   My research is also featured in 'The ridiculous to the sublime', in CAM: Cambridge Alumni Magazine (Issue 95), 15 June 2022: https://magazine.alumni.cam.ac.uk/a-history-of-satire/   For a profile of my research on the University of Exeter website, see 'The Glorious Revolution inspired birth of modern satire long before coffee shop culture, according to new research', 22 January 2021: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_835113_en.html   For a profile of my research on the University of Cambridge website, see 'Unfolding the untold stories of an object d’art', 2 June 2014, see: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/unfolding-the-untold-stories-of-an-object-dart   For my AHRC Networking Grant, 'The Power of Print: Dutch propaganda for a new Russia' (2013-15), see the AHRC website: http://translatingcultures.org.uk/awards/research-networking-awards/the-power-of-print-dutch-propaganda-for-a-new-russia/

Contribution to discipline

Principal convenor of the Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) conference, 10-13 July 2024, the first time in the organisation’s 40-year history that it will be held in the UK

Panel member, Visual Arts, for the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWW DTP2), 2019-2022

External PhD examiner for the University of Cambridge; the Warburg Institute, University of London; and the University of Leiden 


Media

For coverage of my research in the popular press, see:   The discussion of my book, The Birth of Modern Political Satire, with Ian Hislop on Radio 4, ‘Who’s De Hoeghe?’, part 9 of Ian Hislop’s Oldest Jokes (aired 1 Feb 2024); https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vsjb   Mark Bridge, 'Why the Golden Age of political satire was actually Orange', The Times, 22 January 2021: https://advance.lexis.com/document/index?crid=317a09d7-2fbf-44a5-b2ce-bf88346c5d26&pdpermalink=96be93bb-c095-418b-a2f4-44915c68831a&pdmfid=1519360&pdisurlapi=true   'King Billy's crude propaganda prints brought satire to Britain, says historian', Belfast Telegraph, 22 January 2021: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/king-billys-crude-propaganda-prints-brought-satire-to-britain-says-historian/39999785.html   Annabel Sampson, Why the original 'modern' political satirist might not have been William Hogarth: Romeyn de Hooghe's cartoons for William of Orange ought to be classed as the first images of modern political satire, a historian argues', Tatler, 22 January 2021: https://www.tatler.com/article/william-of-orange-birth-of-political-satire-romeyn-de-hooghe-william-hogarth

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Biography

I earned a BA in Art History and Archaeology from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. I spent two years as a British Marshall Scholar at The Courtauld Institute, London, before studying for my PhD at Columbia University, New York. I received a number of grants for my graduate study, among them: the Beinecke Memorial Scholarship; the Samuel H. Kress Fellowship, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Swann Foundation Fellowship, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. I worked as a Specialist in Old Master Paintings at Christie’s New York before being awarded the Speelman Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, a position I held from 2009-2018. I became a lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at Exeter in 2019.

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