Matthew James Holman is a specialist of modern and contemporary
British and American literature and the visual arts. He writes on cultures
of the Cold War, conflict and diplomacy, historical materialism, and sexuality.
He is currently writing a cultural history of the non-aligned movement.
Matthew’s first book, Curating Modern Life: Frank O’Hara, the Mid-Century Museum & the Art of the Cold War, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury. His scholarship has been published, or is forthcoming, in Critical
Quarterly, Essays and Studies, The Journal of Modern
Literature, The Oxford Art Journal, and Women’s Studies. His art and literary criticism has appeared in Apollo, The
Art Newspaper (where he regularly contributes the Big Review feature), Burlington Contemporary, Frieze, Jacobin, New Left Review, Poetry Review, The White Review, The Times Literary Supplement, and
elsewhere. Matthew regularly writes essays for international exhibition catalogues and artists monographs, especially on contemporary painting, including
on Jean-Michel Basquiat, Daniel
Crews-Chubb, Françoise Gilot, Emily Kraus, Sir Christopher Le Brun, Megan Rooney, Gideon Rubin, Yves Tanguy, and Mark Wallinger. He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).
Matthew has held research
fellowships at Yale, the Smithsonian, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in
British Art. He has been the Terra Foundation for American Art Fellow at The
Courtauld, and a Leverhulme Trust-funded Research Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies in Berlin. He has lectured extensively on art
history and curatorial practice, including at The Barbican, The Guildhall, and The Slade, and has taught literary studies at several universities,
including the Freie Universität Berlin, Queen Mary University of London, and University College
London, where he completed his PhD in modern American poetry in 2020. His work as a community organiser and teacher, in non-selective state schools and Russell Group universities, has been recognised by awards from the Higher Education Academy, Higher Education Funding Council England,
and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Matthew is now Lecturer in Literature and Fine Arts at the
University of Hertfordshire, and lives in London.
For enquiries, please email: matthew.james.holman@gmail.com
