Professor, O Cavalheiro Anthony Alan Shelton
BA (Hull), MLitt (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon), FCMA
About
I am of mixed Irish and French ancestry, the son of Alan Shelton and Phyllis Leivers, and hold British and Canadian citizenship. Having lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Mexico, Japan and the United States, and undertaken consultancy work in Europe, Asia and the Americas, I bring an international, inquiring and open perspective to my museum, curatorial and academic projects and writings. I have curated twenty-one exhibitions in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Canada. I have authored 199 books, catalogues, chapters, articles, forewords, and reviews on museums, collections and the politics and visual cultures of Latin America, Mexico and the Iberian Peninsula. I have delivered 196 conference papers, keynote addresses, research papers and talks and have been a discussant at universities and museums worldwide.
I am committed to the values of an open, tolerant and just society that acknowledges the centrality of shared human, social and environmental rights; commitment to a common wellbeing and the safeguarding of academic, cultural and artistic freedoms.
Education
2002
University of Oxford
DPhil., Social Anthropology.
Thesis: The Wixarica. A Highland Peoples of Northwest Mexico
1978
University of Oxford
MLitt., Social Anthropology.
Thesis: Some Problems in the Comparative Study of the Concept of Time
1976
University of Hull
BA (Hons.), Sociology and Social Anthropology
Fellowships & Honours
2021
Fellow, Canadian Museums Association
2017-2018
International Visiting Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan
2016
Knighted for services to Portugese culture, Confraria do Vinho do Porto, Portugal
2007 - present
Fellow, and Member of Common Room Green College, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
1998 - 2002
Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University College London, UK
1991 - 1995
Research Fellow, School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex, UK
1989 - 1990
Visiting Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA
Curated Exhibits and Consultation
2004 - 2021
Curator of three exhibtions, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver
2017
Curator, Do Carnaval à Luta Livre: Máscaras e Devoções Mexicanas, Museu de Lisboa, Lisbon
2013
Curator, Luminescence: The Silver of Peru, University of Toronto Art Center
1996 - 2001
Curator of seven exhibitions, Horniman Museum, London
1998
Consultant, Offerings for a New Life. Funerary Images from Pre-Columbian West MexicoAntwerp Ethnographic Museum
1991 - 1995
Curator of six exhibitions, Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery and Museums, Brighton
1989 - 1990
Consultant, What is Jewellery? Craft Council Gallery, London
1991
Consultant, Altars and Idols: The Life of the Dead in Mexico, University of Essex Gallery, Colchester
1985 - 1991
Curator of two exhibitions, British Museum (Museum of Mankind), London
1989
Consultant, Latin American Art.Hayward Gallery, London (with venues in Stockholm and Madrid)
1985
Curator, Images of Heaven, Images of Earth: Mexican Indian Masks,Wolfson College, Oxford