Margaret Manion Explained

Margaret Mary Manion (born 7 March 1935) is an Australian art historian and curator recognised internationally for her scholarship on the art of the illuminated manuscript. She has published on Medieval and Renaissance liturgical and devotional works, in particular, on Books of Hours – the Wharncliffe Hours, the Aspremont-Kievraing Hours, the Très Riches Heures. She was instrumental in cataloguing Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts in Australian and New Zealand collections. She was Herald Chair Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1979 to 1995, also serving as Deputy Dean and Acting Dean in the Faculty of Arts, Associate Dean for Research, Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1985 to 1988, and in 1987, the first woman to chair the university's Academic Board.

Early life and education

Born in Nowra, New South Wales, Manion was educated at Loreto Convent, Normanhurst and subsequently became a member of the Loreto Sisters. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Education and master's degree at the University of Melbourne, writing her thesis on the Wharncliffe Hours in the National Gallery of Victoria (1962).[1] She researched the frescoes of San Giovanni a Porta Latina in Rome for her doctoral dissertation (1972) under the supervision of Charles Mitchell (1912–1995) at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania.[2]

Career

In the 1960s Manion worked as a teacher, then as Principal of Loreto Abbey Mary's Mount, Ballarat (now Loreto College, Victoria).[3] Between 1972 and 1978 Manion was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, designated the second Herald Chair Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne in 1979 (until 1995), the first woman to be appointed to an established chair in the university. She also served as Deputy Dean and Acting Dean in the Faculty of Arts, Associate Dean for Research, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1985 to 1988. She was the first woman to chair the Academic Board (1987–1988).[4] Since 1995, Manion has been an emeritus Professor, and currently also Visiting Scholar at Newman College (University of Melbourne). An international conference was held in her honour in 2001, with a festschrift published the following year.[5]

She was a foundation member for Australia of the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art; a foundation member of the Società di Storia della Miniatura, Italy; and served for two terms as Foreign Advisor to the International Center of Medieval Art, New York. She is a Life Member of the National Gallery of Victoria, was a member of the Council of Adult Education (1989–1994), the Arts Centre Melbourne Trust (1980–90),[6] the Australia Council (1981–1984), and the Australian Tapestry Workshop, formerly the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (1992–2000).

Honours

Manion was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1986.[7] She is a Life Member of the National Gallery of Victoria and an honorary curator of its collection of Early Medieval and Renaissance Art. She was a trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria for fifteen years and its Deputy President (1984–1990). In 2004, she was appointed Trustee emeritus of the National Gallery of Victoria in recognition of her continuing contribution to the Gallery. In 1989, Manion was awarded the Order of Australia for her contribution to the arts and education. In 2001 she was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne.

Scholarship

Together with Vera Vines and Christopher de Hamel, Manion produced the first census of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in Australia (in 1984)[8] and in New Zealand (in 1989).[9] Between 2009 and 2012 Manion led an Australian Research Council Linkage Project, in conjunction with Shane Carmondy, Bernard Muir and Toby Burrows, to create an on-line catalogue and digitisation of the twenty-seven manuscripts in the State Library of Victoria and other important collections in Victoria. This material subsequently was incorporated into the Europa Inventa database.[10]

In 2005 she authored a scholarly study on the development of the illuminated book from the twelfth century to the advent of printing accompanied by detailed visual analysis of the Gospel Book of Theophanes,[11] the Aspremont-Kievraing Hours,[12] the Melbourne Livy, the Wharncliffe Hours,[13] the Strozzi-Acciaioli Hours[14] and a fragment of a Universal Chronicle,[15] all in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.[16] Manion was guest curator of The Medieval Imagination,[17] an international exhibition at the State Library of Victoria between 28 March to 15 June 2008 of 91 illuminated manuscripts from Cambridge and British libraries and public collections in Australia and New Zealand, which attracted some 110,000 visitors.[18]

Books and journals donated from Manion's research library form the core of the Medieval and Renaissance (Early Modern) Manuscript Studies Collection established at the Allan & Maria Myers Academic Centre, serving the communities of St Mary's College and Newman College, University of Melbourne.

Published works

As author

As editor

External links

Notes and References

  1. Her thesis subsequently was developed into two books. M. Manion, The Wharncliffe Hours: A Fifteenth-century Illuminated Prayerbook in the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, London: Thames and Hudson, 1981; ---, The Wharncliffe Hours, Sydney University Press, 1972.
  2. M. M. Manion, The Frescoes of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1978.
  3. M. R. Clark, Loreto in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, 2009, p. 245
  4. J. Poynter and C. Rasmussen, A Place Apart: The University of Melbourne: Decades of Challenge, Melbourne University Press, 1996, p. 465; P. Grimshaw, "Manion, Margaret Mary", The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, eds., J. Smart and S. Swain, Australian Women's Archives Project http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0663b.htm (accessed 2 April 2017); The Australian Women's Register http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0228b.htm (accessed 23 April 2017);
  5. B. J. Muir, ed. Reading Texts and Images: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Art and Patronage: in Honour of Margaret M. Manion, Exeter University Press, 2002.
  6. V. Fairfax, A Place Across the River: They Aspired to Create the Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne: MacMillan p. 171-2
  7. https://humanities.org.au/fellows/fellow-profile/?fellow_id=454 (accessed 26 October 2023)
  8. M. M. Manion and V. F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London: Thames and Hudson, 1984.
  9. M. M. Manion, V. F. Vines and C. de Hamel, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections London: Thames and Hudson, 1989.
  10. http://europa.arts.uwa.edu.au/about (accessed 14 April 2017)
  11. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1960 http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/23016/
  12. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1922 http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/28920/
  13. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1920 http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/27720/
  14. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1961 http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/23188/
  15. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1966 http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/24266/
  16. The Felton Illuminated Manuscripts in the National Gallery of Victoria, The National Gallery of Victoria and Macmillan Art Publishing, 2005. S. Trigg, "The Felton Illuminated Manuscripts in the National Gallery of Victoria" [review], The Melbourne Age, 6 May 2006.
  17. Manion contributed twenty-one catalogue entries on the manuscripts in B. Stocks and N. Morgan eds., The Medieval Imagination: Illuminated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne: Macmillan Art Publishing, 2008, catalogue numbers: 2, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 24, 26, 29–33, 53–56, 60, 75, 81.
  18. The Medieval Imagination [videorecording], State Library of Victoria and Stella Motion Pictures, 2008. J. McDonald, "The Medieval Imagination" [review], The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 May 2008.

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