A high-profile collecting couple are funding a new postdoctoral fellowship in history of art and technology at Birkbeck, University of London, focused on artificial intelligence (AI).
The two-year fellowship—established by Anita Klesch and A. Gary Klesch, founders of The Klesch Collection—“supports pioneering research at the intersection of art history, AI and emerging technologies”, says a Birkbeck statement.
Researchers investigating any aspect of art history from the Early Renaissance through to the 20th century can apply, with “projects expected to combine rigorous historical scholarship with innovative methodologies such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, digital heritage, immersive technologies and computational analysis”.
Possible research themes for the fellowship include “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Art History”, “Museums, Collections and AI”, “3D Scanning and Digital Heritage” and “Extended Reality (VR, AR and Mixed Reality) as an Art Historical Tool”. Supervised by Joel McKim, a reader in digital media and culture at Birkbeck and the director of the Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology, the successful applicant will publish scholarly papers and organise public lectures and events.
Anita Klesch is a Birkbeck alumna herself—she completed her masters in computer applications for history of art in 1999 and her PhD in history of art in 2012, entitled “A Golden Age or Crisis? The History of Art in the Age of Information Technology”.
She says in a statement: “Art history is entering an incredibly exciting new era, with emerging technologies opening up new ways to explore, understand and share our cultural heritage. We wanted this fellowship to give talented early-career researchers the freedom to pursue ambitious ideas and help shape the future of the field.”
Gary and Anita Klesch started the London-based Klesch Collection with the acquisition of a set of Four Seasons by Giuseppe Arcimboldo in 2014. The collection of 15th through 17th-century European art, which also includes works by Anthony van Dyck, Sofonisba Anguissola and Peter Paul Rubens, is regularly loaned to museums and institutions worldwide.
In 2023, a work by Gerrit Dou was sold at Christie’s London to the collection for $7m (with fees). Earlier this year, the collection acquired a major work by Sandro Botticelli which will be loaned to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for three years.
