Margaret Manion

In 2005 she authored a scholarly study on the development of the illuminated book from the twelfth century to the advent of printing accompanied by detailed visual analysis of the Gospel Book of Theophanes, the Aspremont-Kievraing Hours, the Melbourne Livy, the Wharncliffe Hours, the Strozzi-Acciaioli Hours and a fragment of a Universal Chronicle, all in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. Manion was guest curator of The Medieval Imagination, an international exhibition at the State Library of Victoria between 28 March to 15 June 2008 of 91 illuminated manuscripts from Cambridge and British libraries and public collections in Australia and New Zealand, which attracted some 110,000 visitors.

She was a foundation member for Australia of the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art; a foundation member of the Società di Storia della Miniatura, Italy; and served for two terms as Foreign Advisor to the International Center of Medieval Art, New York. She is a Life Member of the National Gallery of Victoria, was a member of the Council of Adult Education (1989–1994), the Arts Centre Melbourne Trust (1980–90), the Australia Council (1981–1984), and the Australian Tapestry Workshop, formerly the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (1992–2000).

Manion was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1986. She is a Life Member of the National Gallery of Victoria and an honorary curator of its collection of Early Medieval and Renaissance Art. She was a trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria for fifteen years and its Deputy President (1984–1990). In 2004, she was appointed Trustee emeritus of the National Gallery of Victoria in recognition of her continuing contribution to the Gallery. In 1989, Manion was awarded the Order of Australia for her contribution to the arts and education. In 2001 she was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne.

Together with Vera Vines and Christopher de Hamel, Manion produced the first census of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in Australia (in 1984) and in New Zealand (in 1989). Between 2009–2012 Manion led an Australian Research Council Linkage Project, in conjunction with Shane Carmondy, Bernard Muir and Toby Burrows, to create an on-line catalogue and digitisation of the twenty-seven manuscripts in the State Library of Victoria and other important collections in Victoria. This material subsequently was incorporated into the Europa Inventa database.

Born in Nowra, New South Wales, Manion was educated at Loreto Convent, Normanhurst and subsequently became a member of the Loreto Sisters. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Education and master's degree at the University of Melbourne, writing her thesis on the Wharncliffe Hours in the National Gallery of Victoria (1962). She researched the frescoes of San Giovanni a Porta Latina in Rome for her doctoral dissertation (1972) under the supervision of Charles Mitchell (1912–1995) at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania.

In the 1960s Manion worked as a teacher, then as Principal of Loreto Abbey Mary's Mount, Ballarat (now Loreto College, Victoria). Between 1972–1978 Manion was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, designated the second Herald Chair Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne in 1979 (until 1995), the first woman to be appointed to an established Chair in the University. She also served as Deputy Dean and Acting Dean in the Faculty of Arts, Associate Dean for Research, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1985 to 1988. She was the first woman to chair the Academic Board (1987–1988). Since 1995, Manion has been an Emeritus Professor, and currently also Visiting Scholar at Newman College (University of Melbourne). An international conference was held in her honour in 2001, with a festschrift published the following year.

Margaret Mary Manion AO (born 7 March 1935) is an Australian art historian and curator recognised internationally for her scholarship on the art of the illuminated manuscript. She has published on Medieval and Renaissance liturgical and devotional works, in particular, on Books of Hours – the Wharncliffe Hours, the Aspremont-Kievraing Hours, the Très Riches Heures. She was instrumental in cataloguing Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts in Australian and New Zealand collections. She was Herald Chair Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1979 to 1995, also serving as Deputy Dean and Acting Dean in the Faculty of Arts, Associate Dean for Research, Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1985 to 1988, and in 1987, the first woman to chair the University's Academic Board.