Cheryl Buckley

Cheryl Buckley (born 1956)[1] is a British design historian whose research has focused on feminist approaches to design history. She has published on British ceramic design and fashion. Her works include the influential article "Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design" (1986) and the books Potters and Paintresses (1990) and Designing Modern Britain (2007). She is professor of fashion and design history at the University of Brighton, as of 2021, and was previously professor of design history at Northumbria University.

Education and career

Buckley attended the University of East Anglia, gaining a degree in history of art and architecture (1977). She received a masters degree in design history from Newcastle University (1982). She returned to the University of East Anglia for her PhD in design history, awarded in 1991.[2] She worked from 1980 at Newcastle Polytechnic in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, renamed Northumbria University in 1992, latterly as professor of design history, before joining the University of Brighton in 2013, where she is professor of fashion and design history.[2][3] In 2017, she and Jeremy Aynsley established the Centre for Design History at Brighton.[4][5]

In 2000, she co-founded the journal Visual Culture in Britain.[4] She chaired the Design History Society (2006–09) and served as editor-in-chief of its journal, the Journal of Design History (2011–16).[4][5]

Research and writings

Buckley states her current research interests as gender and design,[4] and has been described as a feminist design historian.[6] She has published on ceramic design and fashion, focusing on Britain from the mid-Victorian era to the present day.[3] Her article "Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design", published in Design Issues in 1986, opens:

Women have been involved with design in a variety of ways – as practitioners, theorists, consumers, historians, and as objects of representation. Yet a survey of the literature of design history, theory, and practice would lead one to believe otherwise. Women's interventions, both past and present, are consistently ignored. Indeed, the omissions are so overwhelming, and the rare acknowledgment so cursory and marginalized, that one realizes these silences are not accidental and haphazard; rather, they are the direct consequence of specific historiographic methods.[7]

The designer Clarice Cliff, one of the subjects of Potters and Paintresses

In the article, described as "seminal" by Victor Margolin[6] and "ground-breaking" by Grace Lees-Maffei,[8] Buckley teases out design contributions made by women, and suggests that craft arts have been ignored in the study of design history.[6] Margolin critiques Buckley's article for overlooking design-related technologies, where he states many inventions by women have been documented.[6]

In her first book, Potters and Paintresses: Women Designers in the Pottery Industry, 1870–1955 (1990), Buckley discusses the participation of women in ceramic design during this period, and in particular the methods by which they have successfully negotiated barriers imposed by what the potter Alison Britton describes as "patriarchal definitions of suitable work for females".[9] It portrays the poor working conditions for women in the mid-19th century industry, including low pay, and vulnerability to industrial disease and to unwanted pregnancy.[10] The book focuses on the well-known designer and factory owner Susie Cooper, and also covers the controversial designer Clarice Cliff, as well as lesser-known figures including Hannah Barlow, Freda Beardmore, Dora Billington, Truda Carter, Grete Marks, Louise Powell, Jessie Tait and Millicent Taplin, but excludes figures such as Stella Crofts and Gwendolyn Parnell.[9][10] Britton, in a review for RSA Journal, praises the book's clarity and the choice of a period associated with considerable social change.[9] In a mixed review for the Journal of Design History, Stella Beddoe questions whether the topic was ready for a detailed review when not all the facts had yet come to light, and opines that Buckley is "forthright in stating her theories and views even when the facts would appear to contradict them."[10] A similar area also formed the topic of Buckley's PhD thesis of the following year, entitled "Women designers in the north Staffordshire pottery industry, 1914–1940".[11]

In Fashioning the Feminine: Representation and Women's Fashion from the Fin de Siècle to the Present (2002), Buckley and co-author Hilary Fawcett review fashion in Britain from 1890, highlighting its interaction with both feminism and femininity as well as its "paradoxical" relationship with modernity.[12] Jordanna Bailkin, in a review for the journal Albion, describes the book as "lively and engaging" and considers it to establish "a persuasive case for the importance of foregrounding gender in fashion history", but questions its narrow focus on British fashion.[12] More recently, Buckley co-authored Fashion and Everyday Life: London and New York with Hazel Clark (2017).[1]

In her second sole-authored book, Designing Modern Britain (2007), Buckley surveys British design between 1890 and 2001, broadly chronologically via numerous case studies. She employs a broad definition of design, which she considers "a matrix of interdependent practices", encompassing architecture, town planning, interior design, pottery, textiles, fashion and retail, and foregrounds women's contributions. Themes include defining a British version of modernism, and how the notion of "Britishness" evolved during the 20th century.[13][14] Becky E. Conekin, in a broadly positive review for The Journal of Modern History, praises the breadth of coverage and source material, and considers it a strength that the book highlights examples of design from outside London, especially from the north of England. She also notes "a rather breathless feeling" to the discussion of recent decades.[13] Volker M. Welter, in a review for the Journal of Design History, describes the prose as "captivating", but considers Buckley's conception of design to be "ill-defined and unclear", and the book to be stronger in its concrete examples than in its theoretical discussion.[14] Both reviewers criticise the paucity of examples from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.[13][14]

Selected publications

Books

Source:[1]

  • Cheryl Buckley, Hazel Clark (2017), Fashion and Everyday Life: London and New York, Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 9781847889591CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  • Cheryl Buckley (2007), Designing Modern Britain, Reaktion, OCLC 77797449
  • Cheryl Buckley, Hilary Fawcett (2002), Fashioning the Feminine: Representation and Women's Fashion from the Fin de Siècle to the Present, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 9781860645068CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  • Cheryl Buckley (1990), Potters and Paintresses: Women Designers in the Pottery Industry, 1870–1955, Women's Press, OCLC 21597740

Research articles

References
  1. Buckley, Cheryl 1956–, WorldCat, retrieved 12 January 2021
  2. Cheryl Buckley, ORCID, retrieved 12 January 2021
  3. "Notes on contributors", Journal of Design History, 23: 122, 2010, JSTOR 25653169
  4. Cheryl Buckley, University of Brighton, retrieved 12 January 2021
  5. "Contributors", Design Issues, 36: 102–103, 2020
  6. Victor Margolin (2009), "Design in History", Design Issues, 25: 94–105, JSTOR 20627808
  7. Cheryl Buckley (1986), "Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design", Design Issues, 3: 3–14, doi:10.2307/1511480, JSTOR 1511480
  8. Grace Lees-Maffei, "Judith Attfield", in The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design, Vol. 1 (Clive Edwards, ed.) (Bloomsbury Academic; 2016), pp. 96–97 (ISBN 978-1472521576) (Downloaded from ; 25 November 2020)
  9. Alison Britton (1990), "Gender and Art", RSA Journal, 138: 715–716, JSTOR 41375310
  10. Stella Beddoe (1990), "Review: Potters and Paintresses. Women Designers in the Pottery Industry 1870–1955 by Cheryl Buckley", Journal of Design History, 3: 197–198, JSTOR 1315693
  11. Women designers in the north Staffordshire pottery industry, 1914–1940, WorldCat, retrieved 13 January 2021
  12. Jordanna Bailkin (2003), "Review: Fashioning the Feminine: Representation and Women's Fashion from the Fin de Siècle to the Present by Cheryl Buckley, Hilary Fawcett", Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 35: 528–529, doi:10.2307/4054114
  13. Becky E. Conekin (2010), "Review: Designing Modern Britain by Cheryl Buckley", The Journal of Modern History, 82: 192–194, doi:10.1086/649459
  14. Volker M. Welter (2008), "Review: Designing Modern Britain by Cheryl Buckley", Journal of Design History, 21: 298–300, JSTOR 25228597
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