Association for Art History Fellowship awarded to alumnus Gavin Butt

Art history alumnus Gavin Butt has been announced as an Association for Art History Fellow for 2025.

Now in its sixth year, the Association for Art History Fellowships seek to recognise and honour individuals who have made a significant contribution to the broad field of art history.

Gavin Butt is a writer and creative researcher who explores the significance and impact of visual art in the contexts of popular music, queer culture and performance.

Gavin trained as an artist and art historian at Goldsmiths and the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, where he completed an MA in the Social History of Art in 1989. He received his PhD from the University of Leeds in 1998 with the dissertation Men on the Threshold: The Making and Unmaking of the Sexual Subject in American Art 1948-1965.

Book cover for Gavin Butt's No Machos or Pop Stars. Photo shows members of the Mekons and Delta 5 among fans and friends as pictured in Melody Maker, February 3, 1979. Photo: Jill Furmankovsky.

Gavin is author of No Machos or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk (2022) which launched at a special event at the University of Leeds alongside an exhibition of art by post-punk musicians, Becoming The Ouroboros.

He is also the author of Between You and Me: Queer Disclosures in the New York Art World (2005), editor of After Criticism: New Responses to Art and Performance (2005) and co-editor of Post-Punk Then and Now (2016).

Alongside scholarly output, he works collaboratively on creative research projects including Mixed Up: Music and the Art School (2025), Performance Matters (2009-2013), This Is Not a Dream (2011) and The Art School Dance Goes On (2023).

Formerly Professor of Visual Cultures and Performance at Goldsmiths, he is currently researching histories of UK art education as Professor of Fine Art at Northumbria University.

Association for Art History Fellow, Gavin Butt. Photo by Michelle Henning.

Professor Gavin Butt said:

“I am honoured to have my work recognised by the Association for Art History and to join other Fellows whose work has been formative within my own intellectual and academic development.

“In fact I would like to thank my former Professors at the University of Leeds – the late Fred Orton, Griselda Pollock and Adrian Rifkin – for their engaged and inspirational teaching which I experienced whilst a student there, and which played a significant part in making the award of this Fellowship possible today.”

Album cover for The Art School Dance Goes On: Leeds Post-Punk 1977-1984, a double vinyl set compiled by author Gavin Butt. Cover design: David Caines.

Professor Joanne Crawford, Head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies said:

“Gavin very much deserves this fellowship in recognition of everything he has achieved over the years within the expanded field of art history.

“In his research he deftly works across the visual arts, performance, music and queer lives, experience and theories to bring to light rich and powerful histories. His success in doing this demonstrates an intellectual malleability and tenacity, which in turn create new spaces not just for himself but also his readers; this is his generosity.

“We in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies are immensely proud of Gavin and offer him many congratulations in him being awarded this fellowship. We always welcome him back whenever he visits Leeds and will always consider him one of our own.”

Screenshots from Gavin Butt's co-directed 2011 film, This Is Not a Dream.

The Association of Art History established the Fellowships in 2020. Fellows are chosen from among nominations by a panel of respected peers in the field, with two to three Fellows honoured each year.

In the first year of the programme, the Fellowship was awarded to eminent art historian Griselda Pollock – Professor emerita of Social and Critical Histories of Art at the University of Leeds – and educator and advocate Sarah Phillips who has been a lead contributor for the PG Certificate in Developing Teachers Research and Practice at the University of Leeds.

Joining Gavin Butt as Fellows for 2025 are Althea Greenan (Special Collections and Archives at Goldsmiths, University of London) and Craig Clunas (Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, University of Oxford).

The awards will be presented to this year’s cohort of 2025 Art History Fellows during the Art History Association’s Annual Conference, which takes place in York from 9 to 11 April.

Feature image

Detail from the cover for The Art School Dance Goes On: Leeds Post-Punk 1977-1984, a double vinyl set compiled by author Gavin Butt. Cover design: David Caines.