Helen Buddensieg

Helen Buddensieg is a predoctoral fellow in the Lise-Meitner Group “Decay, Loss, and Conservation in Art History” at the European University Institute and a doctoral candidate at Goethe University, Frankfurt. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Vienna, a Master’s in Italian Renaissance Art from the Courtauld Institute (London), and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen. Her research focuses on Correggio’s religious networks, conservation of 16th-century Italian altarpieces, and the reception of female Vorticists and Wyndham Lewis. She has worked as a curatorial fellow at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and is currently a research assistant for the conservation project of Correggio’s Madonna of Saint Sebastian at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Her doctoral thesis examines this altarpiece’s role in visionary art in 16th-century northern Italy, supervised by Professors Hans Aurenhammer and David Ekserdjian.

• Education:
• Bachelor’s in Art History – University of Vienna
• Master’s in Italian Renaissance Art – Courtauld Institute, London
• Bachelor’s in Business Administration – University of St. Gallen

Research Interests: Her work bridges art conservation, museum history, and the socio-religious contexts of Renaissance art. She explores how altarpieces like Correggio’s functioned as “visionary” objects within their historical networks, combining material analysis with historical reception studies. Her focus on female Vorticists challenges traditional narratives of modernist art movements.

Labs/Teams: She is affiliated with the Lise-Meitner Group’s interdisciplinary research on art conservation and loss, fostering collaborations between art historians, conservators, and scientists.