Professor David John Thistlewood (1944-1998), was Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at the Liverpool University School of Architecture up until his death in 1998. Born in Yorkshire and trained at Leeds College of Art and the University of Newcastle, he joined the staff of the school in 1973 having previously been a lecturer at Leeds Polytechnic from 1966. His Ph.D. Herbert Read: Formlessness and Form - was published in 1984. Professor Thistlewood was the co-founder and editor of The International Journal of Art and Design Education and published extensively, including a series of highly regarded volumes in collaboration with Tate Liverpool on a variety of artists including Barbara Hepworth and Joseph Beuys. He was made president of the National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) from 1990 to 1992, where he was also a Fellow.
David Thistlewood's obituary in the Architects' Journal noted that his academic research in art, architectural history and education '...bridged any divide between art and architecture, while his training as an artist, an architectural educator and an academic allowed him to understand in depth the practices, discourses and institutional forms of each separate discipline.'
The Thistlewood Dissertation Prize is awarded for an outstanding piece of written work each year in the BA.
Further Reading
David Dunster, David Thistlewood, Liverpool university art historian Architects' Journal, 3 September 1998.
John Steers, Obituary: David John Thistlewood, The International Journal of Art and Design Education, Vol. 18, Issue 3, October 1999.