Clare Taylor

I'm an historian of material and visual culture. My first degree was in Modern History at Durham, UK, I then did a PG Certificate in Art Gallery & Museum Studies at Manchester before working as a Curator for galleries in England, Scotland and Wales as well as for English Heritage. I've also lectured Design students in Historical & Critical Studies before joining the Open University. My research is therefore rooted in things; I am interested in why people choose to consume goods, particularly in how they make decisions about decorating their homes. My PhD, subsequently published as my first book, interrogated eighteenth-century wallpaper in Britain, arguing that it was as much the seizing of commercial opportunities by those with skills in printing as demand for this imitative material which led to the huge growth of the trade. I've recently had funding from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art to examine another decorative material, gilt leather. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was used as room hangings, to cover chairs and settees, and even to decorate the officers' cabins on British naval ships. I'm asking why consumers chose to hang animal skins on their walls and how it got there.