Melissa Gustin
Curator of British Art
National Museums Liverpool
Dr Melissa L. Gustin is an art historian, curator and research scholar specialising in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art, neoclassicism, sculpture and classical reception.
She has served as curator of British Art at National Museums Liverpool since August 2023, overseeing the British art collections at the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley Art Gallery.
Gustin’s academic career has included roles at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Henry Moore Institute, and Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, alongside teaching positions at the University of Essex and the University of York.
She holds a PhD in History of Art from the University of York, where her research examined nineteenth-century American women sculptors working in Rome and changing interpretations of classical art.
Her research interests also encompass Victorian painting and sculpture, the Pre-Raphaelites, and feminist and queer approaches to art history. She has published in journals including The Burlington Magazine, British Art Studies and Art History, and is developing a monograph on painter-sculptor George Frederic Watts.
In 2025–26, Gustin curated Turner: Always Contemporary at the Walker Art Gallery, bringing together around 120 works to mark 250 years since J.M.W. Turner’s birth and explore his continuing influence on artists and contemporary issues.
