Dr Tessa Murdoch FSA
Independent scholar, curator, teacher
Tessa is a creative and experienced curator, lecturer and writer with vision, leadership and mentoring skills. Specialist in history of decorative arts with particular focus on clocks, furniture, jewellery, sculpture, gold and silver. Tessa has proven expertise on Huguenot artists, designers and craftsmen and the influence of the Louis XIV style beyond France and a particular interest in the Gilded Age associated with the Anglo-German Jewish circle of plutocrats 1880-1914.
At the V&A from 1990, Tessa was Curator of Furniture and Woodwork and from 2002, Head of Metalwork Collections. She was appointed Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Research Curator, 2019-2020.
Tessa is a board member of the Huguenot Museum, Rochester and the Idlewild Trust. She contributes to the National Trust Advisory Committee on Curation and Interpretation and advises Apollo Magazine. She has been an external examiner for Cambridge and Sussex Universities, University College Dublin and the University of Ireland. She was visiting lecturer for the Cooper Hewitt Decorative Arts Masters Program, New York City 1994-2017.
She has lectured internationally in Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, The Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, and in the USA: Charleston, Dartmouth College, Art Institute Chicago, MFA Houston, Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute and Getty Museum, New York City, New Paltz, Philadelphia, Royal Oak Foundation in New York and Philadelphia, Richmond VA, San Francisco, Yale Center for British Art.
Blogs
Articles
Exhibitions
Books
YouTube
TV