Dr. Carol Jacobi

Dr. Carol Jacobi is Curator of British Art 1850-1915 at Tate Britain, and the lead curator for James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain, the major retrospective running at Tate Britain until 27th September 2026.

A truly global figure, James McNeill Whistler (1833-1903) re-wrote the rules of what it meant to be an artist. He pioneered new and innovative techniques, creating astonishingly beautiful, ethereal visions of modern life that would earn him a place as one of the most influential artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This retrospective – the first major European exhibition of Whistler’s work in 30 years – brings together the artist’s world-famous paintings alongside rarely, or never seen, works. It includes exquisite portraits, drawings, prints, and designs, from as early as his teens in St. Petersburg to the enigmatic late self-portraits.

Dr. Carol Jacobi has a PhD in Art History (Birkbeck), MA in Nineteenth-century English Literature (Kings College), MA in Conservation of Oil Paintings (University of Northumbria) and PGCE (Middlesex University). She has taught at Birkbeck, the Courtauld Institute and elsewhere and was Leverhulme Fellow in the History of Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. Carol’s exhibitions include Van Gogh and Britain (Tate Britain); Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate (Canberra, Milan, Budapest); Salt and Silver, Early Photography (Tate Britain); William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision; Love and Desire (Toronto, Minneapolis, Manchester). She publishes and broadcasts on Victorian art, British art pre- and post-World War Two, and historic photography, with special interest in under and mis-represented groups.

In 2021, she published the monograph Out of the Cage, the Art of Isabel Rawsthorne; ‘Art and illustration: Re-viewing Empire’ in De-Illustrating the History of the British Empire, Preliminary Perspectives and ‘The Violence of Grass’ in Cecily Brown. She is member of BAN Woman Artists and Race, Empire and the Pre–Raphaelites groups and the Race Equality Taskforce at Tate.