Angela Nikolai

Angela Nikolai is a research associate on the project »Genesis & Genealogy«. She examines vegetal ornamentation in Art Nouveau with respect to its origins and structure as well as its formal aesthetic, material and epistemological characteristics. Angela Nikolai gained her Master’s degree in Art History, Modern and Medieval History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Paris Sorbonne University (IV) and the Freie Universität Berlin and has worked, amongst other places, at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. At the University of Tübingen Museum and within the graphic arts collections of the Louvre, she acquired work experience in the fields of exhibitions and collection reviewing. As an academic trainee, she recently curated an exhibition on August Bebel and published an introduction to a private craftwork collection in Wetzlar. She is interested in the interdependence of the natural sciences and the arts and in the interaction of aesthetic practice and episteme, especially in reprography and in artisanal handicraft in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Angela Nikolai’s dissertation investigates the relationship between form theory, design theory, and botany in the 1900s. Her investigation is centered around applied arts educator Moritz Meurer (1839–1916), along with his teaching philosophy of engaging a comparative study of plants in the applied arts.

Research fields

Interdependence of arts and natural sciences in reprography and artisanal handicraft; aesthetics and episteme in artistic practice; history and culture of objects in 18th and 19th century botany.