Leah Clark's OpenLearn Profile

Leah R. Clark is Senior Lecturer in Art History, specialising in the collection and exchange of art objects in the Renaissance courts. She joined the Open University in2013 after having taught ata number of institutions in Canadaand the US. She holds a PhD from McGill University, an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and a BA (Hons) from the University of British Columbia. Dr Clark's research explores the roles objects play in creating networks in the fifteenth century through their exchange, collection, and replication. Her bookCollecting Art in the Italian Renaissance Court:Objects and Exchangeswas published by Cambridge University Press in2018. Her next book project explores objects and materials in cross-cultural exchanges through three key themes—touch, transfer, and translation. She was co-editor(with Nancy Um)of a special issue of theJournal of Early Modern History,specifically focusing on the material and visual elements of the diplomatic encounter:'The Art of Embassy: Objects and Images of Early Modern Diplomacy' (2016) and she has also recently co-edited a textbook,European Art and the Wider World, 1350-1550(Manchester University Press,2017) as part of the module A344, Art and its global histories.She has received awards and fellowships from a variety of institutions including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the AHRC, and the British Academy. At the OU she is founder and Project Lead ofOpen Arts Objects (http://www.openartsarchive.org/open-arts-objects), an innovative project that provides free open access films and teaching support materials geared to the new A-level in Art History. She appears in a number of films on topics ranging from why there is Chinese porcelain representedin a Renaissance painting to the critical terms of mobility and globalisation.