Chemical Inspirations: Printing and Representing “Rainbow”-Style Textiles during the First Decade of Photography

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About the Speaker
Courtney Wilder is a PhD candidate in history of art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her scholarship seeks to explore the visual and material culture of everyday life, especially as it was influenced by technological change. She is currently working on her dissertation titled “Novel Impressions: Prints, Textiles, and the Visual Economy in Europe, 1815–1851.” The dissertation explores the expanding imaginative possibilities that textile printing in particular represented as a powerful economic, scientific, and social force within a rapidly expanding consumer market. The dissertation asks how these stylistic shifts were anticipated and driven by, as well as mirrored in, the broader cultures of print, an area similarly affected by new technologies and that was being directed at new audiences.
 
Courtney holds an MA in history of art from the University of California, Riverside, and a BA in history from Vanderbilt University. She has also held curatorial research positions at the Getty Research Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
 
About the Series
Lunchtime Lectures are a series of (mostly) weekly, informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of the Institute staff and fellows and interested members of the public.