Alexandra Chiriac, PhD

Alexandra Chiriac holds a PhD in art history from the University of St Andrews (2019) and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art (2012). Her doctoral research was funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and she has been a research fellow of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Centre for Modern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hedda Sterne Foundation. Her first monograph, entitled »Performing Modernism: A Jewish Avant-Garde in Bucharest« (2022), investigated the contribution of Jewish-Romanian cultural production to avant-garde movements in Europe and beyond through modern design and experimental Yiddish theatre. Prior to her academic career, Chiriac worked as a senior cataloguer for Sotheby's and as Curator and Public Programmes Coordinator for GRAD, a non-profit cultural platform for Russian and Eastern European arts based in London. She has also worked for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where she encountered more contemporary perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe.

Within the funding of the Henriette Herz Scouting-Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, the Director of the GWZO, Prof. Dr. Maren Röger,as an established researcher, invited Alexandra Chiriac to conduct research at the GWZO on the topic »Another Jazz Age: African-American performers in Romania, 1910 to 1940« in the years 2024-26.

• Modern artistic movements during the twentieth century
• Intersections of visual culture, design, and performance
• Race and ethnicity in East European art and performance
• Histories of Jewish culture in Romania

• Board member of the Society for Romanian Studies

• DeGruyter Open Access Anniversary Prize, Best Monograph in »Art & Architecture« Category, 2022
• Society for Romanian Studies Graduate Essay Prize, 2018
• Catherine and Alfred Forrest Trust Fine Art Bursary, 2017-18
• German History Society DAAD Award, 2017
• Santander Research Mobility Award, 2017

• Volume editor of »A Cultural History of the Avantgarde in Central and Eastern Europe«,  volume II (Brill Publishing)