Professor Mary Roberts
Discipline of Art History
Research Coordinator, Art History
Convenor Art History Research Seminars
Mary Roberts is Professor of Art History and Nineteenth-Century Studies. She specializes in nineteenth-century British and Ottoman art with particular expertise in Orientalism, the history of artistic exchanges between the Ottoman Empire and Europe and the culture of travel. Her books include: Istanbul Exchanges. Ottomans, Orientalists and Nineteenth-century visual culture (University of California Press, 2015), Intimate Outsiders. The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature (Duke, 2007),and five co-edited books: Ottoman Architecture: A Study Published for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair (Gorgias, 2023)The Poetics and Politics of Place. Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism (Pera Museum and University of Washington Press, 2011) Edges of Empire. Orientalism and Visual Culture (Blackwells, 2005), Orientalism’s Interlocutors, (Duke, 2002) and Refracting Vision. Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried (Power Publications, 2000/2012). Her next book, Four Thresholds: Orientalist Interiors, Islamic Art, the Aesthetics of Global Modernities is under contract with The University of Chicago Press.
- European, especially British, art of the Nineteenth Century
- Gender, Orientalism, the history and culture of travel
- Ottoman art in the Nineteenth Century and cultural exchange with European artists
- 2021- present: Member of the Editorial Board, Book Series: Nineteenth-Century Art from a Global Perspective, Brill, Leiden (Liesbeth Hugenholtz, Acquisitions Editor Art and Architecture and Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, series editor-in-chief)
- 2019 - present: Member of the Board for the Historians of British Art (an affiliate society of the College Art Association in North America)
- 2010-2020: Art in Translation, Getty funded ejournal published by Taylor and Francis, Routledge, Expert Advisory Committee Member
- 2015-2018: British Art Studies, online journal published by the Paul Mellon Centre and the Yale Center for British Art, International Advisory Board Member
- 2002-2012: Art History, Journal of the British Association of Art Historians, External Advisory Committee Member
- 2016 - Best Book Prize for Istanbul Exchanges: Ottomans, Orientalists and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture by the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand
- 2016 - Elected Fellow of The Australian Academy of the Humanities
- 2012 - Honourable mention in the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Book Prize for outstanding scholarship in Art History, for The Poetics and Politics of Place. Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism
- 2008 - American Association of College and Research Libraries, (Choice Reviews Online) distinguished list of Outstanding Academic Titles: Mary Roberts, Intimate Outsiders. The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature
- 2001 - Honourable mention in the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Book Prize for outstanding scholarship in Art History, for Refracting Vision. Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried
Selected publications
Publications
Books
- Roberts, M. (2016). Istanbul Karsılasmaları. Osmanlılar, Oryantalistler ve 19. Yuzyıl Gorsel Kulturu. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2015). Istanbul Exchanges: Ottomans, Orientalists, and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture. Oakland, California: University of California Press. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2007). Intimate Outsiders: The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature. Durham (USA) and London: Duke University Press.
Edited Books
- Roberts, M., Williams, S., McAuley, G. (2023). Ottoman Architecture: A Study Published for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. United States: Gorgias Press. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Beaulieu, J., Ross, T. (2012). Refracting Vision: Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried (Reprint). Sydney: Power Publications.
- Inankur, Z., Lewis, R., Roberts, M. (2011). Mekânın Poetikası, Mekânın Politikası: Osmanlı İstanbulu ve Britanya Oryantalizmi. Istanbul: Pera Museum.
Book Chapters
- Roberts, M. (2023). Afterword: Peripheral horizons: Russian Orientalism in a global context. In Maria Taroutina and Allison Leigh (Eds.), Russian Orientalism in a global context: Hybridity, encounter, and representation, 1740-1940, (pp. 253-260). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Williams, S. (2023). Introduction. An Historical Ethnography of Ottoman Architecture: Translating and Visualizing Empire in 1873. In Mary Roberts, Samuel Williams and Gay McAuley (Eds.), Ottoman Architecture: A Study Published for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair, (pp. ix-xliv). United States: Gorgias Press. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2023). The Cross-Cultural Artist-Collector: Orientalist Painting and Collecting in the Late Nineteenth Century/Der Kultur-Ubergreifende Kinstler-Sammler: Malerei und Sammlertum im Orientalismus des Spaten 19. Jahrhunderts. In Zurcher Kunstgesellschaft (Eds.), Re-orientation. Europe and Islamic Art from 1851 to today, (pp. 46-53, 292). Switzerland: Hirmer Publishers. [More Information]
Journals
- Ledbury, A., Smith, T., Laurence, J., Roberts, M., O'Reilly, C. (2023). Personal Tributes delivered at 'Celebrating Emeritus Professor Virginia Spate AC FAHA, 1937–2002', University of Sydney, 10 November 2022. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 23(1), 125-131. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2022). Worlding on the Hudson: Frederic Church and Global Histories of Art. Art History, 45(3), 518-544. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Williams, S. (2021). A Monumental Book: "Ottoman Architecture" at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. Art in Translation, 13(1-3), 2-33. [More Information]
Edited Journals
- Roberts, M., Williams, S. (2021). Fundamentals of Ottoman Architecture (1873). Art in Translation, 13(1-3). [More Information]
Conferences
- Roberts, M. (2009). Visual Elaborations: Fausto Zonaro's 'Ottoman' Self-Portraits. 32nd International Congress in the History of Art 2008, Australia: The Miegunyah Press.
Textual Creative Works
- Roberts, M. (2013). Barbara Campbell: En Route. Atelier Paris: The Power Studio, (pp. 4 - 4). Sydney, Australia: University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney.
Magazine / Newspaper Articles
- Roberts, M. (2024). The Epistolary Interior. Society and Space. [More Information]
Other
- Roberts, M. (2017), Cover Interview: 'On her book Istanbul Exchanges: Ottomans, Orientalists, and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture', Rorotoko, 1 February 2017. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2011), "Mary Roberts ile Soylesi", Toplumsal Tarih, December 2011, Issue 216.
2024
- Roberts, M. (2024). The Epistolary Interior. Society and Space. [More Information]
2023
- Roberts, M. (2023). Afterword: Peripheral horizons: Russian Orientalism in a global context. In Maria Taroutina and Allison Leigh (Eds.), Russian Orientalism in a global context: Hybridity, encounter, and representation, 1740-1940, (pp. 253-260). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Williams, S. (2023). Introduction. An Historical Ethnography of Ottoman Architecture: Translating and Visualizing Empire in 1873. In Mary Roberts, Samuel Williams and Gay McAuley (Eds.), Ottoman Architecture: A Study Published for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair, (pp. ix-xliv). United States: Gorgias Press. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Williams, S., McAuley, G. (2023). Ottoman Architecture: A Study Published for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. United States: Gorgias Press. [More Information]
2022
- Roberts, M. (2022). Worlding on the Hudson: Frederic Church and Global Histories of Art. Art History, 45(3), 518-544. [More Information]
2021
- Roberts, M., Williams, S. (2021). A Monumental Book: "Ottoman Architecture" at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. Art in Translation, 13(1-3), 2-33. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2021). Constantin Guys and the Painters of Global Modernity. In Yasmine Nachabe Taan (Eds.), Fashioning the Modern Middle East: Gender, Body, and Nation, (pp. 91-112). London: Bloomsbury. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Williams, S. (2021). Fundamentals of Ottoman Architecture (1873). Art in Translation, 13(1-3). [More Information]
2018
- Roberts, M. (2018). Artists, Amateurs, and the Pleated Time of Ottoman Modernity. In Dan Karlholm, Keith Moxey (Eds.), Time in the History of Art: Temporality, Chronology and Anachrony, (pp. 79-100). New York: Routledge. [More Information]
- Law, J., Roberts, M. (2018). The Atmospherics of Leighton House: A series of short films. British Art Studies, 9. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2018). The Resistant Materiality of Frederic Leighton's Arab Hall. British Art Studies, 9, 1-70. [More Information]
2017
- Roberts, M. (2017), Cover Interview: 'On her book Istanbul Exchanges: Ottomans, Orientalists, and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture', Rorotoko, 1 February 2017. [More Information]
2016
- Roberts, M. (2016). Istanbul Karsılasmaları. Osmanlılar, Oryantalistler ve 19. Yuzyıl Gorsel Kulturu. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2016). Osman Hamdi Bey and Ottoman Aestheticism. In Hollis Clayson, André Dombrowski (Eds.), Is Paris Still the Capital of the Nineteenth Century?, (pp. 131-152). Oxford and New York: Routledge. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2016). Other Desires and the Desire of Others. In Joan DelPlato, Julie Codell (Eds.), Orientalism, Eroticism and Modern Visuality in Global Cultures, (pp. 141-160). London: Routledge. [More Information]
2015
- Roberts, M. (2015). Istanbul Exchanges: Ottomans, Orientalists, and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture. Oakland, California: University of California Press. [More Information]
2014
- Roberts, M. (2014). Nazli's photographic games: Said and art history in a contrapuntal mode. Patterns of Prejudice, 48(5), 460-478. [More Information]
- Roberts, M. (2014). Ottoman Art, Empire and the Orientalism Debate. In Robert Aldrich, Kirsten McKenzie (Eds.), The Routledge History of Western Empires, (pp. 364-381). London: Routledge. [More Information]
2013
- Roberts, M. (2013). Barbara Campbell: En Route. Atelier Paris: The Power Studio, (pp. 4 - 4). Sydney, Australia: University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney.
- Roberts, M. (2013). En route: 1001 Nights cast. Atelier Paris: The Power Studio. Sydney: University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney.
- Roberts, M. (2013). Networked Objects. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 45(3), 570-573. [More Information]
2012
- Roberts, M. (2012). Divided Objects of Empires: Ottoman Imperial Portraiture and Transcultural Aesthetics. In Julie F Codell (Eds.), Transculturation in British Art, 1770-1930, (pp. 159-175). Surrey: Ashgate.
- Roberts, M., Beaulieu, J., Ross, T. (2012). Refracting Vision: Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried (Reprint). Sydney: Power Publications.
2011
- Roberts, M. (2011), "Mary Roberts ile Soylesi", Toplumsal Tarih, December 2011, Issue 216.
- Roberts, M. (2011). Genealogies of Display: Cross-Cultural Networks at the 1880s Istanbul Exhibitions. In Zeynep Inankur, Reina Lewis, Mary Roberts (Eds.), The Poetics and Politics of Place: Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism, (pp. 127-142). USA: Pera Museum.
- Roberts, M., Lewis, R., Inankur, Z. (2011). Introduction: Disruptive Geographies. In Zeynep Inankur, Reina Lewis, Mary Roberts (Eds.), The Poetics and Politics of Place: Ottoman Istanbul and British Orientalism, (pp. 19-29). USA: Pera Museum.
2010
- Roberts, M. (2010). Gérôme in Istanbul. In Scott Allan and Mary Morton (Eds.), Reconsidering Gérôme, (pp. 119-134). Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications.
- Roberts, M. (2010). Walls of Algiers: narratives of the city. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 69(4), 610-612. [More Information]
2009
- Roberts, M. (2009). Visual Elaborations: Fausto Zonaro's 'Ottoman' Self-Portraits. 32nd International Congress in the History of Art 2008, Australia: The Miegunyah Press.
- Roberts, M. (2009). Visual Elaborations: Fausto Zonaro's 'Ottoman' Self-Portraits. In Jaynie Anderson (Eds.), Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence: the proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the History of Art. Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press.
2007
- Roberts, M. (2007). Intimate Outsiders: The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature. Durham (USA) and London: Duke University Press.
- Roberts, M. (2007). Karşit Noktalar: Said, Sanat Tarihi ve 19. yy'da Osmanlı Kimliğinin Yeniden İcadı [Counterpoints: Said, Art History and the Reinvention of Ottoman Identity in Nineteenth-century Istanbul. Oryantalizm: Edward Said Anısına [Orientalism: In Memory of Edward Said]. Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir.
- Roberts, M. (2007). The Politics of Portraiture Behind the Veil. In Tim Barringer, Geoff Quilley and Douglas Fordham (Eds.), Art and the British Empire, (pp. 223-236). Manchester UK & New York: Manchester University Press.
2006
- Roberts, M. (2006). Harem portraiture: Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann and the Egyptian Princess Nazli Hanim. In Deborah Cherry, Janice Helland (Eds.), Local/Global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth Century, (pp. 77-98). Aldershot UK: Ashgate.
2005
- Roberts, M. (2005). Cultural Crossings: Sartorial Adventures, Satiric Narratives, and the Question of Indigenous Agency in Nineteenth Century Europe and the Near East. In Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones; Mary Roberts (Eds.), Edges of Empire: Orientalism and Visual Culture, (pp. 70-94). Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers.
- Roberts, M., Hackforth-Jones, J. (2005). Edges of Empire: Orientalism and Visual Culture. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. [More Information]
- Roberts, M., Hackforth-Jones, J. (2005). Introduction: Visualizing Culture across the edges of empires. In Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones; Mary Roberts (Eds.), Edges of Empire: Orientalism and Visual Culture, (pp. 1-19). Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers.
2002
- Roberts, M. (2002). Contested Terrains: Women Orientalists and the Colonial Harem. In Mary Roberts and Jill Beaulieu (Eds.), Orientalism's interlocutors : painting, architecture, photography, (pp. 179-203). Durham, United States: Duke University Press.
- Roberts, M. (2002). Inhabiting Tradition: Barbara Campbell's 'Inflorescent'. In Barbara Campbell and Laura Ginters (Eds.), Flesh Winnow. Sydney Australia: Power Publications.
- Roberts, M., Beaulieu, J. (2002). Orientalism's interlocutors. In Mary Roberts and Jill Beaulieu (Eds.), Orientalism's interlocutors : painting, architecture, photography, (pp. 1-18). Durham, United States: Duke University Press.
2000
- Roberts, M., Beaulieu, J., Ross, T. (2000). An Interview with Michael Fried. In Mary Roberts, Jill Beaulieu and Toni Ross (Eds.), Refracting Vision: Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried. 1st Edition. Sydney: Power Publications.
- Roberts, M. (2000). Being Drawn: Barbara Campbell's 'Inflorescent'. Eyeline, Autumn/Winter.
- Roberts, M. (2000). Difference and Deferral: The Sexual Economy of Courbet's 'Femininity'. In Mary Roberts, Jill Beaulieu and Toni Ross (Eds.), Refracting Vision: Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried. 1st Edition. Sydney: Power Publications.
1997
- Roberts, M. (1997). 'Decorum' by Helen Nicholson. Art and Australia, 34(3).
- Roberts, M., Beaulieu, J. (1997). Courbet's Corporeal Realism: The Phenomenological Body and the Anti-theatrical Tradition. In Anthony Bond (Eds.), Body, (pp. 109-118). Melbourne: Bookman Press.
- Roberts, M. (1997). Twelve Catalogue Entries on British and French Orientalist Paintings. In Roger Benjamin (Eds.), The Oriental Mirage: Visions of the East From Delacroix to Klee. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Selected Grants
2023
- Drawing as a media technology, 1850-1890, Roberts M, DVC Research/Bridging Support Grant
2017
- Mary Roberts - SRRRP DVCR-832, Roberts M, DVC Research/Strategic Research Recruitment and Retention Program (SRRRP)
Other funded research
- 2014 Millard Meiss Publication Grant for Istanbul Exchanges: Ottomans, Orientalists and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture, College Art Association
- 2014 Funding for three Global Visual Cultures workshops at the Power Institute in 2014, 2016 and 2017 ($30,000 donated by John Schaeffer)
Visiting fellowships
- 2023-24, Senior Global Fellowship, University of St Andrews
- 2022, Visiting Fellowship (with grant), Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University
- 2019, Visiting Expert, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Theme: Edward Said’s Orientalism after 40 years, (April)
- 2015-17, Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor in Art History, Williams College, MA
- 2014-15, Islamic art, museology and transcultural artist-dealer networks, 1850-1910; Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), National Gallery of Art/William C. Seitz Senior Fellow
- 2011-12, Visiting Scholar, The Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University (July-February)
- 2009–10, The Clark Art Institute/Oakley Center for the Humanities Fellow, (Sept-June)
- 2008–09, Getty Scholar, Getty Research Institute, (Sept–June)
- 2008, Visiting Fellowship, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, (Feb–March)
- 2006, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Research Support Grant
- 2005, Research Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Writing Fellowship
- 2000, Visiting Intercultural Fellow, Richmond College, London
- 1999, Visiting Fellowship, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven