Helen Hills

Helen Hills (born 1960) is a British art historian and academic. She was appointed Anniversary Reader of Art History at the University of York in 2005 and promoted to Professor of History of Art in 2008, making her the first woman professor of Art History there.

Prior to this, Hills taught at the Universities of Keele and Manchester in the UK, at Queen's University in Canada and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published numerous books and articles on art and architectural history. She has particular research interests in the baroque, and was a guest contributor to the BBC radio programme In Our Time about The Baroque Movement in November 2008 and "Night Waves" on 'The Baroque'.

Education and employment Helen Hills was educated at Cambridgeshire High School for Girls (now Long Road Sixth Form College) and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Modern History from the University of Oxford. She gained both a Master of Arts (MA) (Distinction) and PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London; as she was finishing her PhD, she took a sessional appointment at Queen's University, Canada. She taught in the Adult Education Department at Keele University, and then accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Art History at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Hills then returned to England to work initially as Junior Lecturer in History of Art at University of Manchester (1998–2005) before being promoted to Senior Lecturer. She joined the University of York in 2005 as Anniversary Reader in the History of Art. She was promoted to Professor of History of Art at the University of York in 2008.

Leverhulme Research Fellowship: 'Silver: Surface & Substance' 2018-19. Robert Lehman Visiting Professor, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy, 2017. Ruth and Clarence Kennedy Professor in Renaissance Studies: Smith College, Mass., US, 2014. Distinguished Visiting Professor University of Colorado Boulder, US, 2014. Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Art, Emory University, US, 2013. Scouloudi Historical Award publication grant, 2011 from the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research for The Matter of Miracles. Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Stockholm University, Sweden: 2008. Best Book Prize, 2004, the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (US) awarded to Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents.

Publications Helen Hills has published numerous books and articles on art and architectural history, including:

Helen Hills (ed), Silver: Transformational Matter, published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, Proceedings of the British Academy 258, 2023,

The Matter of Miracles: Neapolitan Baroque Architecture and Sanctity (Manchester University Press, 2016) New Approaches to Naples (Routledge, 2013) Rethinking the Baroque (Ashgate, 2011 and Routledge, 2016) Representing Emotions: New Connections in the Histories of Art, Music and Medicine, (Ashgate, 2005) Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents (Oxford University Press, 2004) Architecture and the Politics of Gender (Ashgate, 2003 and Routledge, 2017) Fabrications: New Art and Urban Memory in Manchester (Manchester: UMiM, 2002) Marmi Mischi Siciliani: Invenzione e Identità (Inlaid polychromatic marble decoration in early modern Sicily: Invention and identity) (Società Messinese di Storia Patria, 1999)

Hills edited Open Arts Journal, Issue 6: Baroque Naples: place and displacement, Winter 2017/8

Other information Helen Hills was a guest contributor to the BBC radio programme In Our Time on The Baroque Movement (ironically enough, as she does not believe in a 'baroque movement') in November 2008. Hills has received many grants and awards for her research including from the British Academy (many times), AHRC (multiple times), The Getty, and the British School at Rome (3 times).