Joseph McBrinn was educated and has worked in Ireland, Scotland and France.  He holds an MA (Hons) in art history from the University of Glasgow and a PhD in art history from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.  He has taught at the art schools in Dublin and Belfast since 2000.  He is an Irish art historian, and he also writes about a broad range of design, craft, film, fashion, textiles, photography, architecture and popular culture.  

He teaches across art history and design history and has served as a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Trustees (2011-14) and Higher Education Committee (2021-) of the Association for Art History (AAH).  He has served on other numerous examining committees, advisory panels and peer-review boards in universities, museums, galleries and other public organisations.  

He has held individual research awards from: 

·        Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences;

·        An Chomhairle Éalaíon/Arts Council of Ireland;

·        Arts Council of Northern Ireland;

·        Irish Georgian Society;

·        Esmé Mitchell Trust; 

·        Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Small Research Award 

He has also contributed to collaborative awards from;

·        Leverhulme Trust;

·        Arts and Humanities Research Council; 

·        British Academy

He has published on the intersecting histories of masculinity, disability and the queer in modern art and design in several peer-reviewed journals, including;

·        The Journal of Design History;

·        The Journal of Modern Craft; 

·        Textile: Cloth and Culture

This research culminated in the single-authored, peer-reviewed monograph Queering the Subversive Stitch: Men and the Culture of Needlework published by Bloomsbury (London and New York) in 2021.   

He has served as an Editor, and has served on the Editorial Advisory Board, of journals such as The Journal of Modern Craft and Textile: Cloth and Culture (both Taylor & Francis); he has written extensively for the Irish art press, including Circa and the Irish Arts Review; and since 2018 he has written a column on fashion photography for Source: The Photographic Review.  

He is the author of book chapters and essays on the Celtic Revival, the Irish Arts and Crafts movement, modernism and design reform in Ireland, as well as on the artists Beatrice Elvery, Mia Cranwill and Eileen Gray.  He is the author of the books Sophia Rosamond Praeger, 1867-1954: Art, Literature, Science (2007) and Northern Rhythm: The Art of John Luke, 1906-1975 (2012).  He is currently writing a biography of the Cubist painter and stained glass designer Evie Hone (1894-1955).