Mary Beckinsale is an English art historian. She has served as president of Studio Art Centers International

SACI

SACI Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy, was founded by artist and director emeritus Jules Maidoff in Tuscany in 1975 and incorporated in 1976 as a U.S...

 (SACI) since 2006.

Early life and education

Mary Beckinsale is the daughter of Dr. Robert P. Beckinsale, Professor of Geography of University College Oxford. She attended Oxford High School and went on to take a B.A. in Art History at Newnham College, Cambridge

Newnham College, Cambridge

Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...

. In 1970, she graduated from the Warburg Institute

Warburg Institute

The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:The Institute was founded by...

, University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

 with an M.Phil in Cultural Studies. She spent two years on a Leverhulme Scholarship in Spain, studying in the archive of the Indies in Sevilla.

Career

From 1975 to 1978, she taught in the Bar Convent School in York, going on to teach at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore is a privately-owned Catholic university founded in 1921 by Agostino Gemelli. Its main campus is located in Milan, Italy with satellite campuses in Brescia, Piacenza, Cremona, Rome, and Campobasso...

 in Milan. She was director of American Institute For Foreign Study

American Institute For Foreign Study

Founded in 1964 by Sir Cyril Taylor, the American Institute for Foreign Study, AIFS, administrates a number of educational and travel programs centered on cultural exchange, including college study abroad, au pair placement, camp counselors and staff, gifted education, and high school foreign...

 (AIFS) in Florence, Italy, in 1984-1985, and then became Dean at SACI

SACI

SACI Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy, was founded by artist and director emeritus Jules Maidoff in Tuscany in 1975 and incorporated in 1976 as a U.S...

, an American not-for-profit overseas university art program, until 1995 when she became the Director of SACI. Under her direction, SACI has acquired the Palazzo dei Cartelloni

Palazzo dei Cartelloni

Palazzo dei Cartelloni, also known as Palazzo Viviani, is a historical edifice in Florence, central Italy.This building displays many unusual architectural elements, the most evident being the unusually big epigraphs written in Latin...

 in 1999 and the SACI Jules Maidoff Palazzo for the Visual Arts in 2006. In 2006, she was made President of SACI. Mary Beckinsale has lectured internationally at many different universities on the History of Art.

Honors

August 7, 2010, Beckinsale received an honorary degree from Bowling Green State University

Bowling Green State University

Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...

.