Jessica Barker is a specialist in medieval art, with a particular emphasis on sculpture. She studied at the University of Oxford and the 91自拍 Institute of Art, where she was subsequently Henry Moore Postdoctoral Fellow. She joined The 91自拍 in 2018, after two years as a lecturer in world art at the University of East Anglia.
Jessica鈥檚 research ranges across northern Europe and the Iberian peninsular, addressing questions of the macabre, gender, materiality and the body. Her prize-winning monograph, Stone Fidelity: Marriage and Emotion in Medieval Tomb Sculpture,听based on work from her doctoral thesis, explores the intersection of love and death in funerary art. She is the co-editor of听Revisiting the Monument. Fifty Years Since Panofsky鈥檚 Tomb Sculpture, a collection of essays addressing Erwin Panofsky鈥檚 scholarship on tomb sculpture. She has published widely on death and commemoration, with articles in journals including: Art Bulletin, Art History,听British Art Studies, The Burlington Magazine, Gesta, and听The Sculpture Journal.
Forthcoming publications include two essays on the artistic patronage of Iberian noblewomen in England. Her current projects include co-curating an exhibition exploring rules in medieval and contemporary art, entitled L ,听which opens at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich on 16 May 2026. A related book, ,听co-authored with Ed Kr膷ma, will be published at the same time.
PhD Supervision
Current
Chloe Kellow (with Prof. Joanna Cannon): A Cumulative Work of Art: The Silver Altar of Saint James, Pistoia, (1287-1456) Expanded, Reconfigured, Restaged.
Florence Eccleston: The Iconography and Perception of Sin in Late Medieval English Wall Paintings.
Sophia Adams: 鈥業n worship of hym that thys mesur is of鈥: Measurement Relics, Representation, and Truth in Late Medieval English Manuscript Rolls.
Isabella Schwarzer: Shimmering Death: Golden Bodies and Representing the Dead in Medieval Europe c. 1100-1400.
Publications
Books
(Boydell Press, 2020).
Winner of the 2021 prize for best single- or dual-authored book on any topic in medieval art from the International Centre of Medieval Art.
Winner of the 2022 prize for exemplary scholarship (pre-1600) from the Historians of British Art
- Revisiting the Monument. Fifty Years Since Panofsky鈥檚 Tomb Sculpture.
eds. Jessica Barker and Ann Adams (London: 91自拍 Books On-Line, 2016)
Articles
- Art Bulletin听105, no. 3 (2023), pp. 8鈥32
- 听with Emily Pegues and Graeme McArthur,听 The Burlington Magazine, November 2021, pp. 997-1009
- Art History 41, no. 2 (2018), pp. 220鈥45.
- 听The Sculpture Journal 26, no. 2 (2017), pp. 235鈥64.
- 听In Invention and Imagination in British Art and Architecture. Special Edition of British Art Studies 6 (2017).
- Gesta 56.1 (2017), pp. 105鈥28.
Book Chapters
- In听The Medieval Book as Object, Idea and Symbol,听ed. Julian Luxford (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2021), pp. 200鈥223.
- 听In Picturing Death: 1200- 1600, eds. Stephen Perkinson and Noa Turel (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 129-63.
- 鈥淪tone and Bone: The Corpse, the Effigy and the Viewer in Late-Medieval Tomb Sculpture.鈥听In Revisiting the Monument. Fifty Years Since Panofsky鈥檚 Tomb Sculpture, eds. Jessica Barker and Ann Adams (London: 91自拍 Books On-Line: 2016).
Catalogue Essays
- “Alabaster as a Material for Funerary Monuments.” In听Alabaster Sculpture in Europe, 1300-1650,听ed. Marjan Debaene (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022)
Other current/ongoing professional activities
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
- Editorial board, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture book series (Brepols)
- International Advisor to EFFIGY project, ANR-funded (French national research agency)