Pictured: Professor Emerita Margaret Mary Manion IBVM, AO, FAHA
Margaret Manion was one of Australia’s pre-eminent art historians, and an internationally acclaimed scholar of Medieval and Renaissance art, in particular of illuminated manuscripts.
Margaret Manion was a student of the Loreto Convent at Normanhurst, New South Wales, and subsequently became a member of the Loreto Sisters, a Roman Catholic religious congregation dedicated to education, community development and social justice. Following her completion of a BA in Education, her teaching career began at Loreto Abbey Mary’s Mount, a secondary school in Ballarat (now Loreto College, Victoria). There, and when still a young woman, she was appointed School Principal, the first of her many leadership roles.
She was encouraged by her Order to pursue further studies, and in 1962 undertook a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne, writing her thesis on the Wharncliffe Hours manuscript in the National Gallery of Victoria. She then completed a doctoral dissertation (1972) at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, on the twelfth-century frescoes of San Giovanni a Porta Latina, under the supervision of the distinguished art historian, Charles Mitchell.
Returning to Australia in 1972, Margaret Manion joined the staff of the Fine Arts Department (now Art History programme) at the University of Melbourne as a Lecturer specialising in Medieval art. Seven years later, in 1979, she became the Herald Professor of Fine Arts, the first woman to be appointed to an established chair in the University. Margaret Manion would serve as Herald Chair for sixteen years, until 1995. In this role she set directions in art history that have had far reaching consequences, including the introduction of specialist courses in art curatorship, cultural tourism, and cinema studies. The art history programme which she fostered at Melbourne has equipped generations of students, many of whom now hold positions as directors, curators, and academics in major art institutions in Australia and abroad. Her influence also transformed the postgraduate programme. She herself supervised in a range of areas, including Australian and Indigenous art.
Margaret Manion’s publications include the ground-breaking studies of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australian and New Zealand collections (1984, 1989); major books such as Medieval Texts and Images (1991) and The Art of the Book: its Place in Medieval Worship (1998); and specialist studies such as The Wharncliffe Hours (1981) and The Felton Illuminated Manuscripts in the National Gallery of Victoria (2005). The latter broke new ground, not only in bringing to light new research but also in the integration of text and image as a result of new technologies.
In 2000, she was guest curator of the major exhibition on the Book of Kells at the National Gallery of Australia. This exhibition also brought together fifty-five manuscripts from Australasian collections and attracted an audience of some 81,000 people. Eight years later, she was guest curator of The Medieval Imagination, an international exhibition at the State Library of Victoria, displaying manuscripts from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, which attracted some 110,000 visitors. In 2015 she curated the extraordinary An Illumination: the Rothschild Prayer Book & other works from the Kerry Stokes Collection c.1280-1685 at the Ian Potter Museum of Art.
An international conference was held in Professor Manion’s honour in 2001, with a Festschrift entitled: Reading Texts and Images: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Art and Patronage in honour of Margaret M Manion, published by Exeter University Press in the following year. Most recently, in 2021, she contributed the introduction to the book The art of praise: Italian illuminated choir books 1300-1450, which included essays and tributes to her by colleagues and former students.
Margaret Manion’s high academic standing in art history was reflected in her roles on Australian and international professional bodies. She was a Fellow of the Australian College of Education and the Australian Academy of the Humanities (of which she was Deputy President). She was a foundation member for Australia of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA); a foundation member of the Società di Storia della Miniatura, Italy and served for two terms as Foreign Adviser to the International Center of Medieval Art, New York.
Professor Manion also made an outstanding contribution to the academic and cultural life of the University. She was the first woman to chair the Academic Board. She served as Deputy Dean and Acting Dean in the Faculty of the Arts, and Associate Dean for Research. Her leadership in these roles included the development of supportive programmes for staff and postgraduate research, and the establishment of the Australian Centre. She took a major part in the establishment of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, while her donation of books and journals has formed the core of the Medieval and Renaissance (Early Modern) Manuscript Studies Collection established at St Mary’s College and Newman College Academic Centre.
Margaret Manion brought passion, generosity, dedication, and creativity to her work as a scholar and teacher. In keeping with the mandate of the Herald Chair ‘to communicate the principles of the Fine Arts to the community’, she actively fostered the visual arts. She was a trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria for fifteen years and its Deputy President from 1984 to 1990. She was a member of the Council of Adult Education (1989-1994), the Victorian Arts Centre Trust (1980-90), the Australia Council (1981-1984), and the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (1992-2000). She was also honorary curator of Early Medieval and Renaissance Art at the National Gallery of Victoria and in 2004 was appointed Trustee Emeritus of the National Gallery of Victoria in recognition of her continuing contribution to the Gallery.
Margaret Manion received many honours during her lifetime. In 1986, she was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 1988, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for her contribution to the arts and education. In 2001 she received the Centenary Medal from the Australian Government and was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne.
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