Lovers of art-related video content may have come across Australian-grown art historian and TikTok star, Mary McGillivray. Over the past four years, she has accumulated over 12 million “likes” and nearly 448,000 followers on her TikTok account, @_theiconoclass, and collaborated with the ABC, National Gallery London, the Art History Institute of Australia and more.
Looking at McGillivray’s video content now – ranging from controversial photoshopped images to the best view in Florence – the ability to blend a down to earth sense of humour with well-researched art historical knowledge seems to come naturally to her. McGillivray set out with the mission of ‘making visual cultural analysis accessible for the next generation’, and the hundreds of thousands of people who have tuned are surely a mark of achievement.
