Christiana Payne is Professor Emerita in History of Art in the Department of History, Philosophy and Culture at Oxford Brookes University. Her research interests are in 18th and 19th-century British landscape and genre painting, with a particular emphasis on the representation of the poor and the relationship of art to its social and political context. She has curated exhibitions and displays at Tate Britain, the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, the Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, Higgins, Bedford and Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance.