Iris Moon – Apollo Magazine

Iris Moon. Photo (detail): courtesy Iris Moon

In her role at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Iris Moon made headlines with her recent exhibition ‘Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie’, which considered how the European imitation of Chinese porcelain from the late 17th century has informed modern notions of femininity. Moon is also the author of a number of books that have helped to redefine our understanding of European decorative arts during the long 18th century. Luxury after the Terror (2022) detailed how the French Revolution gave birth to new iconographies in design and decoration; with Melancholy Wedgwood, she shifted idiom to provide an experimental biography of the British ceramicist, entrepreneur and abolitionist that was shortlisted for Apollo’s Book of the Year. With Richard Taws, Moon co-edited Time, Media, and Visuality in Post-Revolutionary France (2024); she also teaches at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

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