[1] A scholar of late medieval and renaissance Italian art, particularly patronage, and a Giotto di Bondone specialist whose expertise has led to a number of scholarships and appointments as visiting professor at various institutions both in Europe and America.
[4]A Rivoira fellowship in medieval archaeology at the British School at Rome followed in the academic year 1965-6 earning him an MA from the University of Oxford in 1966.
[2] He returned to the Courtauld and undertook a PhD; The Influence of Popes’ and Cardinals’ Patronage on the Introduction of the Gothic Style into Rome and the Surrounding Areas, 1254-1305 which Richard Krautheimer has described as ‘the best work in existence on the patronage of Italian art in the Duecento.’[5] Concurrently with working on his doctoral thesis at the University of London, Julian Gardner taught at the Courtauld and lectured there for 8 years[6] until his appointment as Foundation Professor of the History of Art at Warwick University in 1974; a post he remained in until his retirement in 2008.
He was partly responsible for the granting of an honorary degree (D. Litt) to Kitzinger by Warwick University in 1989 to which institute he donated papers on his death.
[9] Julian Gardner joined the editorial consultative committee of the Burlington Magazine in 1975[2] and serves, or has served, as a National Committee Member of the Comité Internationale d'Histoire de l'Art, the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art in Paris,[1] the Association of Art Historians (AAH)[15] and was a member of the Curatorium of the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence from 1993 to 2003.