Anne Harbers

Anne has a life-long fascination for both the humanities and science, and was fortunate to enjoy a 30 year international business career in biotechnology with regular travel to Sweden, through-out Europe & USA, with yearly trips to Asia and New Zealand. During this time she completed a Masters Degree in Chemistry by Research and Thesis and published in this field, as well as completing an MBA in Organizational Behaviour and Marketing.

In parallel, she was an early Committee member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia and co-authored Jane Austen – Antipodean Views with popular ASA Tour Leader Susannah Fullerton. She then went on to complete early distance studies in Art History from Oxford University Department of Continuing Education before completing a Masters in Arts (Art History) from University of Sydney. During this time she was successful in being selected to participate in a Dutch art history course from Amsterdam – Maastricht Summer University in conjunction with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, followed by a Summer Academy run by the State Arts Museums of Dresden (SKD) and a number of specialist courses at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London and Singapore. Throughout this time she was a regular presenter at Art History conferences in both Europe and USA on art, science, and collecting with a particular interest in women within these fields in the 17th – 19th centuries.

More recently she has taken a regular role as a freelance university lecturer, whilst also enjoying giving talks to adult art enthusiasts on decorative arts most recently, on those of Dutch, French and Russian makers and periods, at the Art Gallery of NSW and on Antique Silver for the National Trust. She also lectures regularly at the WEA in Sydney, and to a range of libraries and special interest societies, including past talks to The Johnson Collection in Melbourne.

She has been a collector of antique silver for many years and was the Founder Host and a contributing Lecturer for the Kirkoswold Study Day on Antique Silver from 2007 until 2016. She particularly focuses on the social interactions of decorative objects to social history and how that can inform our way of seeing both the aesthetic beauty and material culture.

An enthusiastic adult education lecturer, Anne spends many months each year in The Netherlands, pursuing her study of the 17^th-century still-life painter Abraham van Beyeren with the work leading towards her PhD. This study has taken her regularly also to Germany, Belgium, UK, Scandinavia and France to major museums and private collectors. Her more recent publications are focused on art history and she will contribute to 2 new publications in 2019/2020 on women and collecting, and the relationships between art and science.

She is delighted to join ASA to share her passion for travel, art history and the visual and decorative arts.