Biography
Dr Michelle Huang gained academic qualifications in Marketing and Humanities from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology before pursuing postgraduate studies in Art History at the University of St Andrews. She taught Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Lingnan University before returning to St Andrews for a teaching position.
Dr Huang has been a visiting scholar at the University of the Arts London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the University of Oxford. She also served as a reviewer for academic publishers and funding bodies, including the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and the Czech Science Foundation. Aside from teaching and research, she got involved in curatorial work, such as internships at the British Museum and the Hong Kong Museum of Art, contributions to a special exhibition and public programmes at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, and art exhibitions at Lingnan University.
In St Andrews, Michelle delivers lectures on various themes in art history in the 19th and 20th centuries. She also supervises research dissertations and special projects on visual arts and culture in modern Europe and Asia, including a website on Chinese Art and Culture in Scotland. Her honours modules are: AH3196 Modern Art beyond the West, AH3134 Collecting Chinese Art: Histories and Practices.
Research areas
Dr Huang’s research interests include cross-cultural exchange on art and curating, history of collecting and display of Chinese painting, art of the Chinese diaspora, and Asian influences on the arts and crafts of Europe and America in the 20th and 21st centuries. She has undertaken extensive research into the reception of Chinese ink painting in Britain c.1880-1980, with special focus on important collections, collectors, curators, scholars and artists associated with the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, and other institutions. Her research findings were presented in a number of international conferences, guest lectures, public talks and academic publications.
Dr Huang has published several articles in edited books and journals with world-leading or internationally recognised publishers, such as the Journal of the History of Collections, The Burlington Magazine, Museum History Journal, and Arts of Asia. She has also edited two books, entitled Beyond Boundaries: East & West Cross-Cultural Encounters (2011) and The Reception of Chinese Art across Cultures (2014). Michelle currently works on a book manuscript entitled The Reception of Early Chinese Paintings in Britain: Collecting, Display and Interpretation, which will be published by Manchester University Press. Her recent research focuses on Chinese women artists and their circle of friends in Britain in the second half of the 20th century.