Dr. Karine Tsoumis

Biography

Karine Tsoumis specializes in Italian Renaissance art with a focus on sixteenth-century Venetian art and maiolica material culture within domestic spaces. She received her Master's Degree in Art History from McGill University in 2005 and her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2013. Tsoumis joined the Gardiner Museum in 2012 as a curator of the historical collection. Since then, she has led research on the permanent collections, been involved in the reinstallation of the museum’s galleries, and curated major exhibitions including 'Animal Stories: Friends, Foes, Fables Fantasy' in 2013, and 'Janet Macpherson: Canadian Bestiary' in 2017, which included an accompanying exhibition catalogue. Additionally, she has curated a range of thematic exhibitions such as 'Art Everyday: Faience Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century France' (2013), 'Joy Collecting' (2014), 'Powder Patches: Porcelain Boudoir Eighteenth-Century Europe' (2016), and 'Brilliant Invention: Majolica Rosalie Wise Sharp Collection' (2017). Tsoumis is also a co-editor and contributor to the publication '30 Objects, 30 Insights' (2014), which consists of essays celebrating the Gardiner Museum’s collection. Her current research examines Renaissance maiolica in the context of trade and luxury objects during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a particular emphasis on the Venetian Republic. She is currently a Fellow at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University, University of Toronto.

Research Interests