Sparke, Penny

Penny Sparke is Professor of Design History and Director of the Modern Interiors Research Centre at Kingston University. After studying French literature at the University of Sussex from 1967 to 1971, she wrote her thesis on the Independent Group (she was a student of Reyner Banham and Charles Jenck) and received her PhD in 1975. She taught at Brighton Polytechnic (now the University of Brighton) and at the Royal College of Art from 1975 to 1999, where she developed the Master's degree in design history with the Victoria and Albert Museum; she later became the Director of Studies of the School of Humanities.