When I created the Open Access Journal of Art Historiography in 2009 I had the ambition to launch a companion series of book publications, using Print on Demand technology and distribution through my university department. I soon discovered that this was overambitious as it would need financial support to employ a designer and administrator, so I asked Ashgate if they would deliver the project. They agreed. We launched a series titles Studies in Art Historiography. The series is concerned with art history as a living practice written by individuals and subject to the more general demands of institutional structures. In this respect it is distinct from traditional approaches that centre on the theories of major art historical figures, the staple diet of student textbooks. It seeks to reinvigorate the field by paying close attention to the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of art historical writing and is intended to supplement the work of the journal, which has been described by the online Dictionary of  Art Historians as ‘the major research organ of the field’. At the moment I am also working with the LOCKSS Program, based at Stanford University Libraries, to ensure that the journal is archived in perpetuity. DOAJ, although very important, catalogues article links and doesn’t actually archive electronic material.

Two days ago we published our first book - Diana Reynolds Cordileone’s Alois Riegl in Vienna 1875–1905: An Institutional Biography, which looks at how Riegl’s art historical work was shaped by factors outside of the academic milieu. Two more books are scheduled for publication in 2014: Victorian Perceptions of Renaissance Architecture by Katherine Wheeler, in April, and A Theory of the Tache in Nineteenth-Century Painting by Øystein Sjåstad, in December. Further down the line are The Expressionist Turn in Art History – A Critical Anthology edited by Kim Smith, in early 2015 and Mariette and the Eighteenth-Century Science of the Connoisseur by Kristel Smentek in Winter 2015. Others are being considered for contract and yet more are waiting clearance review. Guidance for potential authors is given at the Journal’s website, which should be browsed for a sense of the difference between ‘art historiography’ and ‘art history’.

I am happy to field any enquiries concerning the series’ scope  [[log in to unmask]]. Both the journal and the book series will ignore the disciplinary boundaries imposed by the Anglophone expression ‘art history’ and allow and encourage the full range of enquiry that encompasses the visual arts in its broadest sense as well as topics now falling within archaeology, anthropology, ethnography and other specialist disciplines and approaches. It will welcome contributions from young and established scholars and is aimed at building an expanded audience for what has hitherto been a much specialised topic of investigation.

Best wishes,

Richard

Prof. Richard Woodfield

Editor of the Journal of Art Historiography

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

The University of Birmingham