Date of Appointment: 15 May 2023

Gursimran Oberoi is an art historian who specialises in the international and political reception histories of Victorian art. Her upcoming book, Global Watts: Symbolism, Fame and Activism (1880-Present Day), examines the display and appropriation of symbolist artworks by George Frederic Watts in the International Women’s Rights, Indian Independence and African American Civil Rights Movements. It is based on a Collaborative Doctoral Award completed at the University of Surrey and Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village and inspired by the Gallery’s Art for All by All vision to ultimately enrich our understanding of the artist’s legacy. Gursimran has also published on wider themes of nineteenth-century art, gender and radicalism writing about the earliest iconoclasm against art in the name of Women’s Suffrage in ‘Victorian Paintings Under Attack: The Earliest Act of Suffrage Iconoclasm (1913)’ and Pre-Raphaelitism in ‘The Collective Self-Portrait: Drawing Elizabeth Siddal in the New Woman Sisterhood’ in the catalogue accompanying Tate Britain’s 2023 exhibition, The Rossettis.

Gursimran has previously served on governance committees at key bodies in Higher Education and the Arts (including Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Association for Art History). She currently manages the Clinical Academic Training Office at King’s College London in addition to the university’s prestigious flagship PhD programme in Mental Health Research for Health Professionals. She is also an Associate Teaching Fellow at the University of Surrey.