My art criticism and other writing has appeared in publications such Artforum, Australian Book Review, Ms. Magazine, Hamptons Art Hub, and Australian Gourmet Traveller. I’ve also written catalogue entries for the Post-War and Contemporary Art Department of Christie’s New York.
My scholarly research concerns early-modern Europe, Italy in particular, and Venice and the Veneto even more particularly. My art history work has won awards and research funding. I’m an Honorary Research Fellow of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies, and I’m currently writing a book on the art and experience of eighteenth-century Venetian villeggiatura (villa visiting). In support of this study I was awarded a 2018-19 research travel grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
I was born and raised in northeast Scotland but when I was 18 years old, having never been overseas before, wanderlust took me to a village near Venice and a role as a nanny. The first weekend I accompanied the family to the grandparents’ palace on the Grand Canal.
I subsequently backpacked through Europe, with work stints in Greece and Germany; spent a couple of years back in the UK in Brighton; and then went to work in Hong Kong. After that I travelled through southeast Asia for a few months before a one-year working holiday visa took me to Australia. I met my future husband in Darwin and, after arranging visas (he’s English), we moved to Sydney, where I completed my BA (Hons) and PhD in Art History and Italian Studies at the University of Sydney. We got married in a castle back in Scotland.
We now live in New York (the city of my dreams).
Are you looking to hire an arts researcher for an upcoming exhibition or publication? Do you need a writer for a reported story? (Aside from the arts, culture, and travel, I love food and drink, nature, gardens, and the outdoors.) Or are you looking for an arts grant writer or consultant/editor to help with some other kind of project? Email me at salfran.grant@gmail.com.
I look forward to hearing from you!