Christine Olson

Christine Olson studies nineteenth-century British design and material culture, with a focus on Victorian “arts manufactures,” histories of collecting, interior decorating, printing and the book. Her dissertation, “Owen Jones and the Epistemologies of Nineteenth-Century Design,” offers a critical reassessment of a well known figure of the British Design Reform Movement that explores the ways in which design theory, education, and professional practice sought an aesthetic response to industrialization, colonialism, and paradigm-altering shifts in scientific and religious thought.

Before coming to Yale, Christine was the Tiffany and Co. Curatorial Intern in American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). She holds an M.A. and Advanced Certificate in Museum Studies from New York University and a B.A. from Oberlin College.