The prize was presented to David Hansen at a reception in central London on the evening of Thursday 29 November 2018 by Dr Bendor Grosvenor. The assessors commented:

The book is beautifully written and reads at times almost like a very fine novel. An astonishing collection of watercolour portraits of the individuals to be seen on the streets of Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century had found its way to the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery where they were discovered twenty years ago by David Hansen in a drawer marked ‘U’ for ‘Unknown’. The fifty-one portraits were made by the little-known John Dempsey, who has likewise been rescued from undeserved obscurity. David Hansen has given his sitters, many of whom he has identified from inscriptions and local record offices, the dignity of the most refined kind of art history. It is an extraordinarily interesting subject, a compelling contribution to 19th-century scholarship. Dempsey’s outstanding portraits are matched by an authorial act of empathy that brings to life the forgotten people who actually made up Britain and yet whom we never meet in histories. The reproductions of Dempsey’s superb paintings are pinpoint perfect and the whole design and production, the work of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia under its director Angus Trumble, is as original and striking as anything we have seen.

David Hansen is Associate Professor with the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at the Australian National University, Canberra

The assessors were: 

Timothy Standring, Berger Collection, Denver Art Museum; Robin Simon, Editor, The British Art Journal; Kate Heard, Royal Collection; James Hamilton; Jonny Yarker; John Wilson, Trustee, Berger Collection Educational Trust

Katherine Berger, daughter of William MB Berger and a Trustee of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, was in attendance.

William MB Berger Prize for British Art History 2018 Short List

(books published in 2017, Long List Below)

David Hansen

Dempsey’s People:

A Folio of British Street Portraits 1824–1844

National Portrait Gallery of Australia

ISBN 978-0-9953975-1-4 hb AUS $64.95 pp261 bw col

Judith Goodison

The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior

Philip Wilson Publishers

ISBN 978-1-78130056-5 hb £65 pp464 col 280 

David Jacques

Gardens of Court and Country: English Design 1630–1730

Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

ISBN 978-0-30022201-2 hb £45 pp416 bw 150 col 150

Mark Purcell

The Country House Library

Yale University Press

ISBN 9780300227406 hb £45 pp352 bw 50 col 150

Julius Bryant and Susan Weber

John Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London

Yale University Press

ISBN 9780300221596 pp600 hb £40 bw 37 col 700

James Delbourgo 

Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane

Allen Lane

ISBN 978-1-84614657-2 hb £25 pp544 bw 27 col 42

William MB Berger Prize for British Art History 2018 Long List

(books published in 2017)

Evita Arapoglou, ed, Ian Collins, Michael Llewellyn-Smith and Ioanna Moraiti

Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor:  Charmed Lives in Greece

A.G. Leventis Gallery, Nicosia

ISBN 978-9-9637328-8-9 hb 978-9-96373223-4 pb £30 pp253 bw col

James Delbourgo 

Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane

Allen Lane

ISBN 978-1-84614657-2 hb £25 pp544 bw 27 col 42

Simon Thurley

Houses of Power: The Places that Shaped the Tudor World

Bantam Press

ISBN 978-0-59307494-7 hb £30 pp480 bw 123 col 31

Michael Hall

Art, Passion & Power: The Story of The Royal Collection

BBC Books Imprint of Ebury Publishing

ISBN 978-1-78594261-7 hb £30 pp352 bw col

Bernard Nurse, ed

London Prints and Drawings before 1800

Bodleian Library in association with

The London Topographical Society

ISBN 978-1-85124412-6 hb £30 pp232 col 123

Paola Bianchi and Karin Wolfe, eds 

Turin and the British in the Age of the Grand Tour

Cambridge University Press

ISBN 978-1-10714770-6 hb £105 pp514 bw col

James Stourton

British Embassies: Their Diplomatic and Architectural History

Frances Lincoln

ISBN 978-0-71123860-2 hb £40 pp352 bw 14 col 262 

Lynn Hulse

May Morris, Art & Life: New Perspectives

Friends of the William Morris Gallery

ISBN 978-1-91085552-9 hb £20 pp253 b2 30 sepia 16 col 48

Temi Odumosu 

Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour

Harvey Miller Publishers

ISBN 978-1-90940050-4 hb £100 pp223 bw49 col 88

Julius Bryant

Designing the V & A: The Museum as a Work of Art (1857–1909)

Lund Humphries in Association with V&A Publishing

ISBN 978-1-8482223-3-5 hb £35 pp176 col 208

Judith LeGrove

Geoffrey Clarke Sculptor: Catalogue Raisonne

The Geoffrey Clarke Estate & Pangolin in association with Lund Humphries

ISBN 978-1-84822254-0 hb £115 pp248 bw 1,085

Judith LeGrove

Geoffrey Clarke: a Sculptor’s Materials

Sansom & Company

ISBN: 978-1-911-408116 hb£35 pp176 bw col

Sacha Llewellyn and Patrick Elliot

True to Life: British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s

National Galleries of Scotland

ISBN 978-1-91105405-4 pb £19.95 pp144 bw 10 col 140

Alison Smith with Caroline Bugler, Susan Foister and Anna Koopstra

Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites

National Gallery London distributed by Yale University Press

ISBN 978-1-8570961-9-4 pb £14.95 pp104 bw col

Claire Crowley, ed

Frederic William Burton: For the Love of Art

National Gallery of Ireland

ISBN 978-1-90428866-4 pb €15.95 pp95 bw col

David Hansen

Dempsey’s People:

A Folio of British Street Portraits 1824–1844

National Portrait Gallery of Australia

ISBN 978-0-9953975-1-4 hb AUS $64.95 pp261 bw col

James Hamilton

Gainsborough, A Portrait

The Orion Publishing Group

ISBN 978-1-4746005-2-1 hb £25 hb pp448 bw 116 col 35

Matthew Walker

Architects and Intellectual Culture

in Post Restoration England

Oxford University Press

ISBN 978-0-19874635-5 hb £65 pp256 bw30

Darren Pih

John Piper

Pavilion Books

ISBN 978-1-91159509-0 hb £14.99 pp128 bw col 70+

Martin Salisbury

The Snail that Climbed the Eiffel Tower and Other Works by John Minton

The Mainstone Press

ISBN 978-0-95766653-5 hb £35 pp240 bw 130 col 220

Nicholas Tromans

The Art of G F Watts

Paul Holberton Publishing

ISBN 978-1-91130007-6 pb £17.95 pp136 col 70

Julius Bryant

Chevening: A Seat of Diplomacy

Paul Holberton Publishing

ISBN 978-1-91130011-3 hb £30 pp144 col 130

Max Bryant

The Museum by the Park: 14 Queen Anne’s Gate

Paul Holberton Publishing

ISBN 978-1-91130032-8 hb £25 pp128 col 100

Sam Smiles

British Art: Ancient Landscapes

Paul Holberton Publishing

ISBN 978-1-91130014-4pb £25 pp120 col 60

Glyn Davies and Eleanor Townsend, eds

A Reservoir of Ideas: Essays in Honour of Paul Williamson

Paul Holberton Publishing

ISBN 978-1-91130016-8 hb pp292 col 200

Jacqueline Riding

Basic Instincts: Love, Passion, Violence in the Art of Joseph Highmore

Paul Holberton Publishing

ISBN 978-1-91130028-1 pb£25 pp128 col 80

Judith Goodison

The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior

Philip Wilson Publishers

ISBN 978-1-78130056-5 hb £65 pp464 col 280 

Caitlin Blackwell 

Art of Power: Masterpieces from the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart

Prestel Publishing 

ISBN 978-3-79135663-1 hb £35 pp144 col 73

Michel Remy

Eileen Agar: Dreaming Oneself Awake

Reaktion Books

ISBN 978-17802372-7-5 hb £30 pp240 bw 29 col 104

Tanya Harrod

Leonard Rosoman

Royal Academy of Arts 

ISBN 978-1-91035063-8 hb £29.95 pp240 col 200

Rufus Bird and Martin Clayton, eds

Charles II: Art and Power

Royal Collection Trust

ISBN 978-190974144-7 hb £29.95 pp464 col 400+ 

Adrian Lewis

The Drawings of Roger Hilton

Sansom & Company

ISBN 978-1-91140817-8 pb £25 pp224 bw col

Jeremy Musson 

Between Two Worlds: An Architectural History of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Scala Arts and Heritage Publishers Limited

ISBN 978-1-7855107-8-6 hb £29.95 pp184 bw 31 col 115

Mel Gooding, David Mabberley, Joe Studholme

Joseph Banks’ Florilegium: Botanical Treasures from Cook’s First Voyage

Thames & Hudson Ltd

ISBN 978-0-500-519363 hb £65 pp320 bw col 181

Angus Haldane

Portraits of The English Civil Wars

Unicorn Publishing Group

ISBN 978-1-91078738-0 pb £25 pp144 bw 24 col 65

Christine Casey

Making Magnificence: Architects, Stuccatori and the Eighteenth Century Interior

Yale University Press

ISBN 978-0-30022577-8 hb £50 pp328 bw 50 col 175

Susan Grace Galassi, Ian Warrell, and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein

Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages Through Time

The Frick Collection in association with Yale University Press

ISBN 978-0-30022314-9 hb £30 hb pp176 col 120

David Jacques

Gardens of Court and Country: English Design 1630–1730

Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

ISBN 978-0-30022201-2 hb £45 pp416 bw 150 col 150

Kate Retford

The Conversation Piece: Making Modern Art in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art 

ISBN 978-0-30019480-7 hb £45 pp440 bw 85 col 150

Mark Purcell

The Country House Library

Yale University Press

ISBN 9780300227406 hb £45 pp352 bw 50 col 150

Glenn Adamson, Martina Droth, eds

Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery

Yale University Press

ISBN 9780300227468 hb £55 pp472 col 316

Eleri Lynn

Tudor Fashion: Dress at Court

Yale University Press 

ISBN 9780300228274 £35 pp208 col 180

Amanda Maddox, Sara Stevenson

Thomas Annan – Photographer of Glasgow

Getty Publications distributed by Yale University Press

ISBN 9781606065235 hb £35 pp180 ill

Elizabeth Prettejohn

Modern Painters, Old Masters:

The Art of Imitation from the Pre-Raphaelites to the First World War

Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

ISBN 9780300222753 hb£45 pp 288 bw 30 col 130

Julius Bryant and Susan Weber

John Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London

Yale University Press

ISBN 9780300221596 pp600 hb £40 bw 37 col 700

Victoria Noel-Johnson

De Chirico and the United Kingdom (c. 1916–1978)

Maretti Editore, Falciano

978-88-98855-37-7 € 60 pp 831 bw col 

William MB Berger Prize for British Art History 2017 Winner

Sacha Llewellyn

Winifred Knights 1899–1947

Lund Humphries in association with Dulwich Picture Gallery

ISBN 978-1-848221772 (HB) 978-1-898519348 (PB)
pp208 bw 11 col 165 £40 hb £25 pb

‘There could not be a better example of how to re-establish a reputation that urgently needed it, a triumph of rehabilitation that will open up a whole group of neglected artists for future study and a tradition that has been “written out”.’ ‘Extraordinary research from scratch.’