Caroline Levitt (MA 2005; PhD 2009) is Senior Lecturer, specialising in 19th and 20th century art and literature, especially (though not exclusively) in France. From 2021 to 2025, she was Head of the History of Art department, and prior to that she was head of the Graduate Diploma programme.
Caroline has a particular interest in relationships between text and image/object in the broadest sense, and in relationships between modern art and the sacred. One of her current projects is centred on the unstable and dynamic interactions that emerge when artists draw over pre-printed materials, from maps to works of poetry or prose; the other is about doubt as modernist and theological critical tool. Caroline co-convenes the Sacred Traditions and the Arts seminar series, run jointly with Kings College London, and for several years, she ran the 91自拍’s Word and Image research cluster.听
Caroline enjoys contributing to new developments and explorations of the 91自拍’s collections, and has been involved in short films to introduce the book library’s collection of and Gauguin’s manuscript听Avant et Apr猫s. 听She has also been a regular contributor to the 91自拍鈥檚 Public Programmes.
Current Teaching
Caroline is on sabbatical for the academic year 2025/6, but her regular teaching includes the following specialist modules:
- MA Special Option:听Wordplay: Intersections between the verbal and the visual, c.1870 to the present
- BA3 Special Option:听Le Corbusier: Opposing Categories
- BA1 Topic:听Modern Art听and the Sacred
PhD Supervision
- Gianna French, The Haunted Surface: The Material Conditions of Spectrality in Victorian Drawing
- Elina Gudmundsson,听Surrealism and Fairy Tales
- Bella Kesoyan, Transatlantic Dialogue: The French livre d鈥檃rtiste and printmaking influences in American contemporary artist鈥檚 books听(Advisor)
- Rose Pickering,听Memory, Time and the Muse: An Exploration of 脡douard Vuillard鈥檚 Representations of Women through a comparison with Marcel Proust鈥檚 ‘脌 la recherche du temps perdu’ (Advisor – completed Spring 2025)
- Allegra Tenenbaum, Reconfiguring听the Sacred: Women Artists and the Modern Religious Space
- Claudine Seroussi,听Continuity and Disruption: The French Jeweller 1920-29听
Research interests
- Modern art, with a focus on France c.听1850 to the present
- Relationships between word and image, including the palimpsest and the materiality of text
- Modern art, literature and the sacred
- Modern artists working in non-painterly media, including literature, film and applied arts
- Links between architecture and poetry, especially the art, architecture and writing of Le Corbusier
Co-convener of the Sacred Traditions and the Arts seminar series.
Recent conference papers and talks
- ‘Reading Between the Streets: Pierre Alechinsky, Gilbert Lascault and the Use(lessness) of Maps’, paper accepted for the forthcoming conference of the IAWIS (International Association of Word and Image Studies), Word, Image and Social Dynamics, Amsterdam, 24-28 August 2026.
- ‘Machines temporelles: anachronisme et esprit, du Pavillon de 1925 脿 ses apr猫s-vies’ (‘Time Machines: Anachronism and Spirit in Le Corbusier鈥檚 Work from the 1920s to Today’,) paper presented at the international conference Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris, 21-22 January 2026.
- ‘Worry Lines: Jean Cocteau, Corita Kent and the Word as Form鈥, Keynote paper for the symposium听Vision and Form, Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature, 24 April 2025.
- ‘Idle chatter, or writing instead of talking: Language and (un)certainty in Gauguin鈥檚 Text and Image’, Paper presented at the conference听Avant et Apr猫s: Gauguin’s Final Words,听The 91自拍, 23-24 June 2023.
- ‘Devotion, Doubt and the ‘Down-and-Out’: Jean Cocteau’s Murals in 迟丑别听脡glise Notre Dame de France, Leicester Place’, Lecture given as part of the King’s College London AKC Lecture series, 21 November 2022.
- ‘Repetition as Truth: Language and (un)certainty in Gauguin鈥檚 Text and Image’, Paper presented as part of an international workshop on Gauguin’s Avant et Apr猫s,听The 91自拍, 2-3 November 2022.
- Member of a panel for the Brooklyn Rail broadcast 鈥楪uernica: The Survival of a Myth鈥, 15 April 2022. https://
- Multiple Viewpoint Narrative and Universal Language: The Translatability of Picasso鈥檚 Guernica, paper presented at the conference 18-19 November 2021, Museo Picasso, Malaga. (Conference paper recording available at conference link above).
- 鈥樷溾nd find the title long afterwards鈥: Gauguin Rethinking Gauguin鈥,听Open 91自拍 Hour听series 3 episode 1,听Rethinking Gauguin, 1 October 2020. Online here:听听
- 鈥楺uestioning Topographies in Word and Image: Pierre Alechinsky and Gilbert Lascault鈥檚听Arrondissements听(1983)鈥.听Word and Image听research seminar, The 91自拍, 20 November 2019.听
- 鈥楻e-forming the Past, Crafting the Modern: The Tapestries of Le Corbusier鈥,听The Weaver鈥檚 Workshop: Materiality, craft and efficacies in the art of tapestry,听Association for Art History Conference 5-7 April 2018.
- 鈥榃hat is the point of titles? Understanding Gauguin鈥檚听Nevermore鈥, ResFest 2018,听91自拍, April 2018.
- 鈥楽ilent non-production: poetry, immateriality and Apollinaire鈥檚 Medardo Rosso鈥, Study Day:听,听91自拍/Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, February 2018.
Recent and forthcoming publications
Articles and essays
- Caroline Levitt, ‘”People of the Book”: L茅ger, Cendrars and the Livre d’artiste‘, La fin du monde, by Fernand L茅ger and Blaise Cendrars.听A project of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2025. [Forthcoming Autumn 2025]
- Caroline Levitt, 鈥楲a narrativa de puntos de vistas m煤ltiples y el lenguaje universal: la traducibilidad de Guernica de Picasso鈥, in: Jos茅 Lebrero Stals, Pepe Karmel (eds.), Guernica: Pervivencia de un mito (Malaga: Museo Picasso/Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2022), pp. 87-104. [English title: 鈥楳ultiple Viewpoint Narrative and Universal Language: The Translatability of Picasso鈥檚 Guernica鈥橾
- Caroline Levitt, 鈥樷淒ifferent Eyes at Different Times鈥: Rasmus Meyer鈥檚 Munchs and Samuel 91自拍鈥檚 Collection in Dialogue鈥, in: Barnaby Wright (ed.), Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen (London: The 91自拍 Gallery, 2022), pp. 61-81.
- Caroline Levitt, 鈥楻oots: UNESCO by Le Corbusier鈥 in: UNESCO Art Collection: Selected Works (Paris: UNESCO, 2021), pp. 399-400. Available online in Open Access:
- 鈥榃eaving Words: Le Corbusier and Jean Lur莽at Between Tapestry and Poetry鈥,听LC. Revue de recherches sur Le Corbusier,听No. 2 (Sept 2020), pp. 76-89.听
- 鈥楾he World at War: Early Twentieth Century鈥,听Art and Time: A World History of Styles and Movements, London, Phaidon, 2014
- 鈥楻aoul Dufy, Pierre Alechinsky and Jim Dine: Depicting the Arts in Guillaume Apollinaire鈥檚 鈥淟e Po猫te assassin茅鈥濃,听Nottingham French Studies, (Special Issue on 鈥楢rt in French Fiction since 1900鈥), Autumn 2012.听
- 鈥楢pollinaire, Derain and L鈥橢nchanteur pourrissant: The Decay and Multiplication of Gothic Meaning鈥, Cleaver L., Lepine A. (eds),听Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars, 2012
- 鈥楳odern Art, 1900 to mid-century鈥櫶The Art Museum, London, Phaidon, 2011
- 鈥楩rom the Walls of Factories to the Poetry of the Street: Inscriptions and Graffiti in the Work of Apollinaire and the Surrealists鈥,听Papers of Surrealism, Issue 9, Summer 2011.听
- 鈥楽creening Poetry: Guillaume Apollinaire, Andr茅 Breton and Experimental Cinema鈥,听Immediations: the 91自拍 Institute of Art journal of postgraduate research, vol. 2, no.1, London, Jul 2008
Reviews
- Book review,听A Moment鈥檚 Monument: Medardo Rosso and the International Origins of Modern Sculpture听by Sharon Hecker (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), CAA.reviews, 2019.
- Book Review, The Radical use of Chance in Twentieth Century Art by Denis Lejeune (Brill, 2012), Modern & Contemporary France, 20(3), June 2012, pp. 386鈥387.
- Book review,听Constantin Brancusi by Sanda Miller (Reaktion Books, 2010), Slavonic and East European Review, April 2011.
- Exhibition review,听Mondrian/De Stijl, Centre Pompidou, Paris,听The Burlington Magazine, vol. 153, no. 1296, March 2011.
- Exhibition review,听Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Tate Modern, London,听Art and Christianity Journal, issue 64, Winter 2010.
- Book review,听Picasso and Apollinaire: the persistence of memory听by Peter Read (University of California Press, 2008),听The Burlington Magazine, vol. CL, no. 1268, November 2008.