Marjan Sterckx is associate professor of Art History at Ghent University, where she is programme chair and lectures on the histories of nineteenth-century art and of interior design. She heads the UGent-VUB research group The Inside Story: Art, Interior & Architecture 1750-1950 (ThIS), which she launched in 2016, and that yearly organizes the Studiedag Historisch Interieur en Design. Sterckx is co-editor of Brepols Publishers' new book series XIX. Studies in 19th-century Art and Visual culture, and the scholarly journal Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design. She is a board member of ESNA (European Society of Nineteenth-century Art) and advisory board member of the scholarly journals Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (NCAW) and Oud Holland.
Her research concerns art, especially sculpture, in relation to gender and space (public and domestic), as well as interior design history, c. 1750-1950. Her PhD research on women sculptors and their work in the metropolis (Paris, London, Brussels, 1770-1953), published by the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, was awarded the ‘Tri-annual Award for Humanities' of Academische Stichting Leuven. In 2019, Sterckx was denominated 'Laureaat van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, klasse Kunsten'.
Research interests: 19th-century art & art practice, 19th-century sculpture, women sculptors, sculpture & photography, monuments, art & gender, art & corporeality, art & the interior, interior painting, historic interiors, design history