Lisa Skogh de Zoete is a scholar, researcher, lecturer and project leader with extensive international experience at museums, universities and other cultural institutions conducting research, curatorial work and running projects. Academically, she specialises in early modern European history in between the arts and sciences with a strong focus on the history of collecting, especially the early modern period. This has made Lisa Skogh de Zoete an expert on the history of cabinets of curiosities, Kunst- and Wunderkammern, the precursor of the modern museum. She has lectured and published extensively in the UK and around the world. She has received many awards, amongst them, the British Academy Rising Star Award. Presently, she works on various publishing projects, such as the multi-author publication Sir Balthazar Gerbier (1592-1663). Early Modern Polypragmatism for Amsterdam University Press (to be published 2026).
Since 2025, she is also a member of the Campaign Board of the Courtauld.
Recently, she led the project Opening the Cabinet of Curiosity at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This was part of a prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Funded V&A Research Institute. In this key project she worked closely with the contemporary American artist Mark Dion and her fellow early modernist Earle Havens of Johns Hopkins University. At the V&A she led the project What was Europe? A New Salon a project produced together with Professor Simon Schaffer of Cambridge University and the British Academy which resulted in a series of podcasts. Further, she participated in the exhibition catalogue Alexander McQueen – Savage Beauty curated by Claire Wilcox. In 2016, she took the initiative to set up the annual Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Lecture in the History of Collecting where Professor Paula Findlen of Stanford University gave the inaugural lecture on the scholarly impact of the Arthur MacGregor’s and the late Oliver Impey’s publication The Origins of Museums.
Lisa Skogh de Zoete is based in London and has a PhD from Stockholm University and MA from the Bard Graduate Center in New York. She is a Fellow at a number of institutions including The Society of Antiquaries. She has worked and pursued research at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Rosenborg in Copenhagen, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschitchte in Munich and was a trustee of The Society for the History of Collecting (2016-2024).
Lisa Skogh de Zoete
SCHOLAR RESEARCHER PROJECT LEADER
Selection of Awards and Fellowships
The Society of Antiquaries, Fellow
British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award
Victoria and Albert Museum, Exchange Fellow at Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Educational Programme Grant
Victoria and Albert Museum, Arnhold Curatorial Exchange Fellowship, Green Vault, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, Birgit and Gad Rausing - Foundation Fellowship, Wenner-Gren Foundation
The Swedish Central Bank (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, Lindahl Post-doctoral Fellowship, The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
The Swedish Royal Armoury’s, Research Award for doctoral thesis
DAAD (Deutsche Akademischer Austausch Dienst), Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich
Dresden International Academy of the Arts, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Dr. Günther Findel Stiftung, Pre-doctoral fellowship, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel
Swedish Institute Fellow, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Ministère de la Culture, Diréction des Musées de France, Ecole du Louvre and INHA / l’Institut National du Patrimoine (INP), Seminaire européen des conservateurs, Paris