About

MaryKate Cleary is an art historian, lecturer and expert provenance researcher based in the United Kingdom. Bilingual in English and German, and a French speaker, MaryKate has extensive experience conducting research related to the historic ownership of art and cultural property, especially relating to claims of Nazi-era dispossession. Her research has contributed to the identification, recovery or restitution of dozens of stolen or looted artworks. She has acted as an expert witness in numerous cases and has appeared on a variety of media programmes and news broadcasts as an expert interviewee. 

Previously, MaryKate held roles at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),  The Art Loss Register, Sotheby’s London, artnet.com and The Jewish Museum (New York). MaryKate is in the final stages of completing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh where her research focuses on the transnational market for avant-garde art in the inter-war era, and the plundering Jewish art dealers by the Nazis in Paris during the Occupation. 

She has lectured widely, including as an Adjunct Professor at New York University (NYU), where she teaches the first academic course at a U.S. institution dedicated to Provenance Research. She is also an Associate Lecturer at The Courtauld Institute of Art. She has guest-lectured at Columbia University, Stanford University, Kingston University, The University of Zurich, Christie's Education and Sotheby's Institute of Art.

MaryKate holds a BA in German Literature from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., a Masters in History of Art from The Courtauld Institute of Art, and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Technische Universität Dresden. She is a member of The International Art Market Studies Association (TIAMSA), and co-organiser of the interdisciplinary Research Cluster on Collecting and the Art Market at the University of Edinburgh.