News archive 2005

King's historian wins transatlantic book prize

22 Dec 2004, PR 80/04

Dr Arthur Burns, Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in History has won the 2004 William MB Berger Prize for the History of British Art.

The £5,000 prize is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution to the history of British art in the categories of exhibition, exhibition catalogue and book. Dr Burns received the award along with co-editors Derek Keene and Andrew Saint for the recently-published book St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 1604-2004.

The assessors commented on the scope, range and originality of the book, its consistently high level of scholarship and quality of the writing, and the editorial achievement it represented. “In an especially strong shortlist it stood out as the one truly essential publication,” said Robin Simon FSA, editor of The British Art Journal.

The book was commissioned to celebrate St Paul’s 1,400th anniversary and features the work of 44 experts on the cathedral and its historical context.

"The three editors are delighted and surprised to see St Paul's emerge as the winner from such a strong field. It is a tribute not only to the scholarship of the contributors (including both Dr Mark Smith and Dr David Crankshaw from the King's Theology and Religious Studies Department), but to Sally Salvesen of Yale University Press, Christine Faunch, our indefatigable research assistant, and our picture researcher Julia Brown," said Dr Burns.

St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 1604-2004 edited by Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint, was published in April 2004 by Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-09276-8.

Notes to editors

The William MB Berger Prize
The prize was established in 2002 by the British Art Journal and the Berger Collection Educational Trust in memory of American collector of British art, the late William MB Berger, founder of the Berger Collection at the Denver Museum of Art.

The assessors were: Dr Christopher Lloyd, CVO, Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures; Dr Timothy Standring, Chief Curator, Denver Art Museum; M. Olivier Meslay, Département des Peintures, Musée du Louvre, Paris; Dr Martin Postle, Head of British Art, Tate Britain; Professor Linda Colley, Department of History, Princeton University; Dr Anne Bermingham, Professor of the History of Art, University of California at Santa Barbara; Robin Simon FSA, Editor, The British Art Journal.

Also shortlisted for the book award were:
William Hodges, 1744-1797: the Art of Exploration, edited by Geoff Quilley and John Bonehill (Yale University Press 2004).
Gothic: Art for England, 1400-1547, edited by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson, with the assistance of Eleanor Townsend (Victoria & Albert Museum 2003).
John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, by David Hansen (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery /Art Exhibitions Australia 2003).
The Small House in 18th-Century London: A social and architectural history, by Peter Guillery (Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art 2004).
Van Dyck: A complete catalogue, edited by Susan J Barnes, Nora de Poorter, Oliver Millar, Horst Vey (Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2004).

Previous winners were Professor David Solkin for the exhibition Art on the Line at the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House in 2002 and Brian Andrews for the exhibition catalogue Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, in 2003.

King’s College London
King’s is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with 13,800 undergraduate students and some 5,300 postgraduates in ten schools of study. The College had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level. King’s is in the top group of five universities for research earnings with income from grants and contracts of more than £93 million (2002-2003) and has an annual turnover of £348 million. King’s is a member of the Russell Group, a coalition of the UK’s major research-based universities.

Department of History
The Department dates back to the 1870s. It admits about 110 undergraduates every year and has a thriving postgraduate community engaged in work for MA and PhD degrees. It achieved the highest rating in the national Teaching Quality Assessment in 1994, and a top 5* rating in the Research Assessment Exercise in 1992, 1996 and 2001. Members of staff research and teach a wide range of subjects in British, European, Imperial and South Asian History.

Dr Arthur Burns
Dr Arthur Burns is Senior Lecturer in Modern British History and Head of the Department of History at King's College, London. Dr Burns has written widely on the history of the Church of England and reform projects in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. He recently co-edited Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Further information
Melanie Gardner, Senior Public Relations Officer, King’s College London.
Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7848 3202

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