Rate My Professor Marjan Sterckx

Prof. Dr. Marjan Sterckx is Professor of Art History in the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Ghent University, Department of Art, Music and Theatre Sciences. She earned her PhD in Art History from KU Leuven between 2002 and 2006, with a thesis examining sculptures by women in the public spaces of Paris, London, and Brussels from circa 1770 to 1953. Her career at Ghent University includes roles as program director of Art History from 2018 to 2021, secretary of the Art History Program Committee from 2015 to 2018, and current service as secretary of the department's examination committee. Sterckx teaches courses on nineteenth-century art, including Overzicht van de beeldende kunst: 1789 tot heden, 19de-eeuwse kunst: capita selecta, and Historisch interieur en design, as well as master-level research seminars. She supervises approximately ten bachelor theses and ten master theses annually on topics in nineteenth-century visual arts, interior, and design history. As founding director of the interdisciplinary research group The Inside Story: Art & Interior 1750-1950 (ThIS), established in 2016 in collaboration with Vrije Universiteit Brussel, she leads investigations into art's role in architecture and interiors, historic interiors, decorative arts, and gender issues, with a focus on Belgium in international context.

Sterckx's research centers on the intersections of art, gender, and space—public and domestic—spanning 1750 to 1950, encompassing nineteenth-century art practice, sculpture, women artists, historic interiors, monuments, and design history. She has supervised numerous doctoral projects, such as The Hidden Layers of Belle Époque Sgraffiti (2025-2029), Support Systems: The Hidden Labour Behind Art Making (2023-2026), and Crime Scenes: Interwar Interiors in Belgium through Forensic Photography (2019-2021). Key publications include the co-authored book Buitenshuis En Binnenskamers: Beeldende Kunst 1800-1914 (Abby, 2025), co-edited Untold Stories: Women Designers in Belgium (CFC, 2025), and the award-winning article 'The Interior as a Witness: Interwar Interiors in Flanders Captured by Forensic Files' (Journal of Interior Design, 2022). She has curated exhibitions including Crime Scenes at Vandenhove Ghent (2021), Yvonne Serruys. Sculpteur de la femme nouvelle in Menen (2023), George Minne. De Verloren Zoon at MDD Deurle, and co-curated Untold Stories at Design Museum Brussels (2024). Sterckx is founding co-editor of the Brepols series XIX: Studies in 19th-Century Art and Visual Culture and co-editor of Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design. Her contributions have earned the 2019 Laureate award from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts (Arts category), the 2022 Faculty Teaching Award and Journal of Interior Design Best Article Award, and election in 2024 as member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, klasse Kunsten.