Art History: Graduate & alumni profiles
Shaune Lakin
PhD (Melbourne) 2002
PGradDip (Art History and Cinema Studies) (Melbourne) 1996
Bachelor of Education (Visual Arts) (Melbourne) 1988
Curator of Photographs, Australian War Memorial
Shaune Lakin grew up wanting to be a painter but now looks at photographs. His attention is now squarely focussed on the relationship of photography, memory and history. His work at the Australian War Memorial, where he works with a vast archive of photographic images dealing with conflict and commemoration, provides an ideal space for this focus.
Shaune came to this place through the Art History program at the University of Melbourne, where he was awarded his doctorate in 2002. Shaune's dissertation, written under the supervision of Dr Chris McAuliffe, considered the photographic books of Walker Evans and Ed Ruscha as ruminations on American history and nationalism. Since then, Shaune has worked as a curator in national institutions. He was Curator of International Painting and Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia, where he worked on exhibitions of French paintings from the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, and the Irish-American painter Sean Scully. His work at the Memorial has included exhibitions and books on the collection, notably Contact: photographs from the Australian War Memorial collection (2006), the first substantial history of Australian conflict photography.
Mark McDonald
BA Hons (La Trobe) 1987
MA (La Trobe) 1992
PhD (Melbourne) 1997
Curator of old master prints and Spanish drawings, the British Museum, London
Mark McDonald decided early on that art history was his calling and pursued a broad undergraduate program followed by a MA which looked at the artist Jusepe de Ribera. After Mark completed his PhD at Melbourne University with Assoc. Prof. David R. Marshall on Spanish seventeenth-century printmaking he went to work at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles where he curated an exhibition on Spanish drawings. After two years at the Getty Mark moved to London where he currently works and lives.
In 2005 his exhibition Columbus: Renaissance Collector showed at the British Museum after touring Spain. In addition to his museum work Mark teaches in courses at the Courtauld Institute and supervises several PhD students through University College, London University. Mark mainly publishes on Renaissance prints and drawings, but also on sculpture and paintings. In 2004 Mark published his three volume work on the print collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539), the son of Christopher Columbus, which has been awarded the 'Apollo Book of the Year' award for 2004. When he is not working, Mark hunts the world for exciting mountain biking destinations.