Professor EmeritusRoger Benjamin

Project Opportunities

Title: Aboriginal Art, French Art, and Orientalist art

Summary of opportunity:

Born and raised in Canberra, ACT, Roger Benjamin took an Honours degree in Philosophy and Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne in 1979. His MA and PhD were undertaken at Bryn Mawr College outside Philadelphia, whence his doctoral work on early Matisse took him to Paris (1982-83). Roger was appointed in 1984 as Lecturer in Fine Arts at Melbourne where he worked until 1998. From 1998-2000 he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University. He then taught at the ANU School of Art until his appointment as Power Professor and Director of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney (2003). From 2007 he has been Professor of Art History in what is now the Discipline of Art History and Film Studies at the University of Sydney. His visiting fellowships include the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, Mass.). In 2013 Professor Benjamin was awarded the prestigious 3-year Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA) of the Australian Research Council.

Opportunity synopsis:

Professor Benjamin's ARC Discovery project is: "Art and cultural exchange at the Strait of Gibraltar". His research fields have included Matisse and the art of the Fauves; French Orientalist art and colonialism 1830-1930; contemporary Australian art, and contemporary Australian Indigenous art.

Professor Benjamin supervises Honours, Master's and PhD theses in the fields of Aboriginal Art, French Art, and Orientalist art.

----------Current Research Projects----------

Art and Cultural Exchange at the Strait of Gibraltar

The Visual Culture of the Snowy Mountains Scheme (1949-74)