Introduction

Thomas Hughes’s research focuses on nineteenth-century art and aesthetics. He has published widely on John Ruskin, and also Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Walter Pater and Marcel Proust. His work has particularly focused on queerness and representations of nature. Other writing considers subjectivity and language in Michael Baxandall and T. J. Clark.

Rachel Stratton is an art historian and curator whose work centers on twentieth- and twenty-first-century art. She is currently a guest curator at the Yale Center for British Art. Her research explores global modernisms, the entanglements of art, science, and politics, and artistic exchange between Britain and its former colonies. Her curatorial projects include Isaac Julien: Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvellous Entanglement (2023) and the forthcoming Gwen John: Strange Beauties (2026–2027). Her writing appears in British Art Studies, Sculpture Journal, and a range of edited volumes and catalogues.