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Bernard Vere

Program Director, MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design / Historic Art and Design
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PhD, London Consortium
MRes, London Consortium
MA, University of Nottingham
BA, University of East Anglia

Bernard Vere specializes in art from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. His work explores the connection between technological advances and the rise of the metropolis in modernist art, particularly in its implications for the individual subject. Recent research has concentrated on the relationship of sport to art, leading to his book, Sport and Modernism in the Visual Arts in Europe, 1909-1939. Vere has also been published in journals and art magazines, including Art History, Modernism/ modernity, British Art Studies, Visual Culture in Britain, and The International Journal of the History of Sport. He has served on the Executive Steering Committee of the British Association of Modernist Studies and is an elected member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Vere has been an invited speaker at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as presenting research at numerous conferences and galleries. He has previously taught at Birkbeck College (University of London), London Metropolitan University, and Tate.

Instagram: @bernardvere

Bernard Vere
  • Selected Publications

    Selected Publications

    Books:
    Sport and Modernism in the Visual Arts, c. 1909-1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018)

    Editor, Eyeing London (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2002).

    Peer-Reviewed Journals
    ‘“Blast Sport”? Vorticism, Sport, and William Roberts’s Boxers’. Modernism/ Modernity. Volume 24, number 2 (April 2017): 349–70.

    ‘A “Modern Rendezvous” in London: Painters, Pilots and Edward Wadsworth’s A Short Flight’. British Art Studies, number 5 (April 2017), //www.britishartstudies.ac.uk. https://doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-05/bvere.

    ‘Pedal-Powered Avant-Gardes: Cycling Paintings in 1912–13’. International Journal of the History of Sport. Volume 28, numbers 8-9 (May-June 2011): 1156–73.

    ‘Oversights in Overseeing Modernism: A Symptomatic Reading of Alfred H Barr, Jr’s “Cubism and Abstract Art” Chart’, Textual Practice, Volume 24, number 2 (April 2010): 255–86. Also selected for inclusion in Textual Practice’s Virtual Special Issue ‘Modernism and Postmodernism’ (July 2012), alongside Kathy Acker, Terry Eagleton, J. Hillis Miller, Linda Hutcheon, Peter Nicholls, Christopher Norris and others.

    ‘“The Most Wonderful and Complex City in the World”: London and the Camden Town Group’, Literary London, www.literarylondon.org Volume 8, number 1 (March 2010).

    ‘Enigma Variation: Edward Wadsworth’s “Marine Still-Lifes” and Giorgio de Chirico’. Visual Culture in Britain, Volume 7, number 1 (summer 2006): 39–58.

    Essays or Chapters in Books

    (in press) After Purism: The Young Man’s Home at the 1935 Brussels Exhibition in 'Purism and After: Sport and the European Avant-Garde, 1900–1945 (eds. Przemyslaw Strozek and Andreas Kramer (Leiden: Brill, 2021)


    “A Token of Triumph Cut Down to Size”: Jacob Epstein’s Rock-Drill as Fetish Object’, Sculpture, Sexuality, and History: Encounters in Literature, Culture and the Arts from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, eds. Jana Funke and Jen Grove (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 125-43.


    ‘Andy Warhol, Pelé and the “Athletes” Series’, Halcyon Gallery, London, exh. cat. Pelé: Art, Life, Football, 26 September – 25 October 2015, pp. 35–41.

    ‘Authentic the Second Time Around? Eduardo Paolozzi and Reconstructed Studios in a Museum Environment’. Art and Authenticity, eds. Megan Aldrich and Jos Hackforth-Jones (London: Lund Humphries, 2012), pp. 88–97.

    ‘Avant-Garde Photography in the Soviet Union’. Photography: The Whole Story, ed. Juliet Hacking (London: Thames and Hudson, 2012), pp. 208-15.

    ‘Pedal-Powered Avant-Gardes: Cycling Paintings in 1912-13’. The Visual in Sport, eds. Mike Huggins and Mike O’Mahony (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 70-87.

    ‘On the Wings of a Dove: Jacob Epstein’s Third Marble Doves, 1913-1915’ in Understanding Art Objects: Thinking Through the Eye, ed. Tony Godfrey (London: Lund Humphries, 2009), pp. 132-43.

    (with Michael Uwemedimo), ‘Unknowable London: An Interview with Patrick Keiller’ in Eyeing London, pp. 35-59.

    ‘It’s all Crap … Scatological Elements in Kurt Schwitters’s Hanover Merzbau’ in Arcade, ed. Nina Pearlman (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2001), pp. 126-43.
  • Professional Affiliations

    Professional Affiliations

    British Association of Modernist Studies
    (served on Executive Steering Committee, 2013–16)

    Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA)
    Elected member, UK Section.

    Association of Art Historians

    Modernist Studies Association (US)
  • Conferences And Lectures

    Conferences And Lectures

    'Sport and Art'. Paris 1924: Body, Modernity, Nationhood, Fitzwilliam Museum/ University of Cambridge, 28 May 2020

    ‘“It’s Up to US”: James Fitton and the
    Alpha Group’. 'The Working-Class Avant-Garde', London Southbank University, 22 June 2018.

    More than “a Bad Bird”? Vorticism and the Aesthetics of Flight’. ‘Historical Modernisms Symposium’. Institute of English Studies, University of London, 12–13 December 2016.

    'Vorticism and the "Boxing Wave" of 1914'. ‘Masculinity and the Metropolis’, University of Kent, 22–23 April 2016.

    ‘“Blast will be popular, essentially”: Vorticism and Mass Culture’. Invited speaker, Wyndham Lewis Society AGM Lecture, 11 December 2015.

    ‘“BLAST SPORT”? Vorticism, Sport, and William Roberts’s Boxers’. Invited speaker, London Modernism Seminar, 7 February 2015.

    ‘Oval Balls and Cubist Players: Avant-Garde Depictions of Rugby’. Invited speaker, Association of Art Historians Art History in the Pub session, 29 September 2014.

    ‘“Blast Sport”: Vorticism’s Arty vs Hearty Moment’. ‘BLAST 2014’, Bath Spa University, 24–25 July 2014.

    ‘End of Season Modernism: The Modernist Football Stadiums of Florence and Turin’. ‘Modernism Now’, British Association of Modernist Studies Conference. Senate House, University of London, 26–28 June 2014.

    ‘A Love Match: Tennis and Modern Architecture’. Association of Art Historians Annual Conference. Royal College of Art, London, 10–12 April 2014.

    ‘Art in the New Age’. Invited speaker, Modernist Magazines Research Seminar, Institute of English Studies, University of London, 16 January 2014.

    ‘Towards a Gestural Art Criticism: Mr Hulme and the Critics’. Invited speaker and panellist, T. E. Hulme Colloquium, Wolfson College, Oxford, 14 September 2013.

    Seminar paper, ‘The Stadium and the City’, for ‘Modernist Cities’ seminar. Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Sussex, 30 August 2013.

    Invited speaker and panellist, British Association of Modernist Studies Postgraduate Training Day, King’s College London, 9 May 2013.

    Co-Chair of panel ‘1930–1969’ at ‘The Art Press in the Twentieth Century: History, Criticism and the Art Market in Magazines and Journals’, Sotheby’s Institute of Art/ Burlington Magazine, 1 February 2013.

    ‘“Smiling Insinuatingly”: Wyndham Lewis at the Rebel Art Centre and in the Mass Media’. ‘Wyndham Lewis: Networks, Dialogues and Communities’, Institute of English Studies, University of London, 30 November – 1 December 2012.

    ‘A Token of Triumph Cut Down to Size: Jacob Epstein’s Rock Drill as Fetish Object’. ‘Desiring Statues: Statuary, Sexuality and History’. University of Exeter, 26–27 April 2012.

    ‘The Anti-Aesthetic Fashioning of an Avant-Garde: Dress at the Proto-Vorticist Rebel Art Centre in 1914’. Association of Art Historians Annual Conference. Open University, Milton Keynes, 29–31 March 2012.

    ‘Horse Power: Fortunato Depero’s Neighing at Speed and the Horse in Italian Futurism’. Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London. Public gallery talk for the exhibition ‘From Morandi to Guttuso: Masterpieces from the Alberto Della Ragione Collection’, 12 February 2011.

    ‘Painting in France, Italy and Spain, c. 1895–1935’, Invited speaker. ‘Modernism study weekend’. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16 October 2010.

    ‘Pedal-Powered Avant-Gardes: Cycling Paintings in 1912–13’. ‘The Visual in Sport’, University of Bristol, 13–14 June 2009.

    ‘“Smiling Insinuatingly”: Wyndham Lewis and the Mass Media in 1914’. ‘Modernism and Visual Culture: An International Conference’, University of Oxford, 1–2 November 2008.

    ‘Divided by a Common Language? German and Soviet Photomontage’. Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London. Public gallery talk for the exhibition ‘Cut and Paste: European Photomontage, 1920–1945’, 18 October 2008.

    ‘“The Most Wonderful and Complex City in the World”: London and the Camden Town Group’. ‘Metropolis and Modernity: Camden Town Study Day’, Tate Britain, 12 April 2008. (Podcast available through Tate website.)

    Chair for the panel ‘Hold It, Exercise It, Manipulate It’ at ‘Take a Deep Breath’. Tate Modern, 16 November 2007.

    Chair/ discussion participant for the panel ‘Visions of Happiness’ at ‘Happiness: Lessons from the Arts’, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 25 November 2006.

    ‘Noble Art? Arthur Cravan vs Jack Johnson’. ‘Playtime: The Cultures of Play, Gaming and Sport’, 2nd European Summer School in Cultural Studies, 26 July 2005.

    Invited respondent at Tate Liverpool’s one-day symposium ‘Paul Nash: Landscape, Identity and Britishness’, 18 October 2003.

    Chair for presentation by Patrick Keiller of his ‘City of the Future’ project, Tate Modern, 31 July 2003.

    ‘Kafka: Critic of the Teletubbies’. ‘Down and Dirty’ Conference, Institute of Contemporary Arts, 19 July 2003.

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MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design - London Bernard Vere on Fine and Decorative Art and Design in London