Marjan Sterckx is an associate professor of Art History at Ghent University. Her teaching responsibilities include courses on the histories of nineteenth-century art and of interior design. She is the founding chair of the research group The Inside Story: Art, Interior & Architecture 1750-1950 (ThIS), which is jointly hosted by Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. ThIS organizes the annual Studiedag Historisch Interieur en Design in Ghent. Her research concerns the intersections between art, gender and space, both public and domestic, during the period c. 1750-1950.
Sterckx has published articles in numerous academic journals, including Sculpture Journal, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, Journal of Interior Design, History of Photography, and has contributed chapters to several edited volumes. She co-edited the volumes Sculpting Abroad: Nationality and Mobility of Sculptors in the Nineteenth Century (with Tom Verschaffel, Brepols, 2020), and Male Bonds in Nineteenth-Century Art (with Thijs Dekeukeleire and Henk de Smaele, Leuven University Press, 2021). Currently, she is preparing edited volumes on Spaces of Belgian Culture 1860-1920 (with Dominique Bauer and Ilja Van Damme, 2025), on the 19th-century Belgian triennial Salons (with Jan Dirk Baetens and Tom Verschaffel, 2025), and on Jenny Montigny (with Johan De Smet, 2026). She is founding co-editor of Brepols Publishers' book series XIX. Studies in 19th-century Art and Visual Culture, and co-editor of Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design.
In 2021, Sterckx created the exhibition Crime Scenes in Ghent, which explored Belgian interwar interiors through the lens of forensic photography, and its catalogue. In 2023, she curated the exhibition Yvonne Serruys. Sculpteur de la femme nouvelle in Menen and edited the accompanying book, published in both French and Dutch. Together with Katerina Serulus and Javier Gimeno-Martinez, she also curated the exhibition Untold Stories. Women designers in Belgium 1880-1980 at Design Museum Brussels (15/10/2024-14/04/2025). At present, she is engaged in the prepation of exhibitions on Jenny Montigny for the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, in collaboration with Johan De Smet, Mieke Ackx and Johan Cauwels, and on women sculptors in Belgium for Museum M.
In 2009, Sterckx was awarded the Tri-annual Award for Humanities by the Academische Stichting Leuven for her PhD research on women sculptors and their work in the metropolis (Paris, London, Brussels, 1770-1953), and the Rakow Grant for Glass Research from the Corning Museum of Glass, New York. In 2019, she was named a laureate of the Royal Flemish Academy for Sciences and Arts, in the category of the Arts. In 2022, she received the Teaching award (Onderwijsprijs) from the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Ghent University, as well as the Best Article award from the Journal of Interior Design for her article ‘The interior as a witness'. In 2024, she was elected a member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, klasse Kunsten.
Research interests: 19th-century art & art practice, sculpture, women artists, art & gender, art & the interior, historic interiors, monuments, sculpture & photography, design history
