Dr Kathryn Brown

Kathryn is a specialist in three inter-connected fields: modern and contemporary art, art markets, and digital art history.

Modern and Contemporary Art: Kathryn’s books include Women Readers in French Painting 1870–1890 (Routledge 2012), Matisse’s Poets: Critical Performance in the Artist’s Book (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), Henri Matisse: A Critical Life (Reaktion, 2021), and Dialogues with Degas: Influence and Antagonism in Contemporary Art (forthcoming Bloomsbury, 2023). In addition to her journal articles, book chapters, and catalogue essays, she has edited numerous essay collections including: The Art Book Tradition in Twentieth-Century Europe (Routledge, 2013), Interactive Contemporary Art: Participation in Practice (I.B. Tauris, 2014), Perspectives on Degas (Routledge, 2017) and Digital Humanities and Art History (Routledge, 2020).

Art Markets: Kathryn’s work on art markets involves close examination the values and epistemic cultures that have developed around artists, art objects, and cultures of display. Her recent articles in this area have been published in the Journal of Visual Art Practice, Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, and the Journal for Art Market Studies.

Digital Art History: In 2020, Kathryn edited the Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History (Routledge). Following a British Academy Talent Development award in 2021, she has developed projects in computer vision analyses of artworks and collaborates closely with computer scientists active in this field. Her work explores the disciplinary opportunities and challenges that have emerged in response to the use of digital resources and methodologies in art historical research and teaching.

In recent years, Kathryn’s research has been funded by the British Academy, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Independent Social Research Foundation, The Shpilman Center for Photography, the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, French Studies, and the Association for Art History. She has held visiting fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University, Tulane University, and the Center for Advanced Studies in Visual Art in Washington DC.

Kathryn's research interests range from 19th- and 20th-century French painting and literature to artists’ books, modernism, contemporary art, the art market, and digital art history. She is a specialist in the works of Henri Matisse and Edgar Degas. Her books include Women Readers in French Painting 1870–1890 (Routledge 2012), Matisse’s Poets: Critical Performance in the Artist’s Book (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) and Henri Matisse: A Critical Life (Reaktion, 2021). In addition to her journal articles, book chapters, and catalogue essays, she has edited numerous essay collections including: The Art Book Tradition in Twentieth-Century Europe (Routledge, 2013), Interactive Contemporary Art: Participation in Practice (I.B. Tauris, 2014), Perspectives on Degas (Routledge, 2017) and Digital Humanities and Art History (Routledge, 2020).

Her current research focuses on intersections between art markets and museums; the histories and legacies of New York Dada; and the print culture of the Harlem Renaissance. She is also developing her research on the work of Edgar Degas and Henri Matisse. 

In recent years, her research has been funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Independent Social Research Foundation, The Shpilman Center for Photography, the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, French Studies, and the Association for Art History. She has held visiting fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University, Tulane University, and the Center for Advanced Studies in Visual Art in Washington DC.

Completed

 Current

Books (single author)

• 2023 Dialogues with Degas: Influence and Antagonism in Contemporary Art (Bloomsbury Academic)

• 2021 Matisse: A Critical Life (Reaktion)
• 2017 Matisse’s Poets: Critical Performance in the Artist’s Book (Bloomsbury Academic)
• 2012 Women Readers in French Painting 1870–1890: A Space for the Imagination (Routledge)

Books (editor and contributor)

• 2020 Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History (Routledge)
• 2016 Perspectives on Degas (Routledge)
• 2014 Interactive Contemporary Art: Participation in Practice (I.B. Tauris)
• 2013 The Art Book Tradition in Twentieth–Century Europe: Picturing Language (Routledge)

Journal Special Issues (editor and contributor)

• 2020 Art Markets and Museum Futures, Journal of Visual Art Practice (Fall).
• 2019 Politics and the Art Market, Journal of Art Market Studies, vol. 3, no. 1.

Recent Articles

• 2022 ‘Art Markets, Epistemic Authority, and the Institutional Curation of Knowledge’, Cultural Studies (Taylor & Francis), (February), 1–21.
• 2021 ‘Screen Culture, Online Auctions, and Art Market Spectacle’, Visual Studies (Taylor & Francis), (May), 1–12.
• 2021 ‘Invoquer Apollinaire: Le livre d’artiste comme grimoire’, Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France, no. 1. 161–75.
• 2020 ‘Disappearing Acts: Fictitious Capital, Aesthetic Atheism, and the Artworld’, Journal of Visual Art Practice (Taylor & Francis) vol. 19, no. 3, 225–40
• 2019 ‘Collage as Form and Idea in the Art Criticism of Tristan Tzara’, French Studies (Oxford University Press), 544–60.
• 2019 'Private Influence, Public Goods and the Future of Art History’, Journal of Art Market Studies, vol. 3, no. 1.
• 2018 ‘Degas in Pieces: Form and Fragment in the Late Bather Pastels’ in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, 17: 2 (October).
• 2016 ‘Framing Disaster: Word and Image in Tacita Dean’s The Russian Ending’, Journal of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, vol. 31 (June), 121–45.
• 2015 ‘Against Autobiography: Henri Matisse’s Writings on Art’, Life Writing (Taylor & Francis), 12:1, 43–58.
• 2014 ‘Touch and Vision in Edgar Degas’s Darkfield Monotypes’, Print Quarterly, XXXI, no. 4 (December), 395–405
• 2014 ‘Egyptian Voyages: Gustave Flaubert, Maxime Du Camp, and Fouad Elkoury’, History of Photography (Taylor & Francis), 38:2, 161–72.
• 2014 ‘Art and Epistemic Injustice: Ursula Biemann’s Remote Sensing and Black Sea Files’, Art and the Public Sphere, 3:1, 45–62.
• 2013 ‘Remembering the Occupation: La Mort et les statues by Pierre Jahan and Jean Cocteau’, Forum for Modern Language Studies (Oxford University Press), 49:3, 286–99.
• 2013 ‘Undoing Urban Modernity: Contemporary Art’s Confrontation with Waste’, European Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage Publications), 16:6, 678–91.
• 2010  ‘The Aesthetics of Presence: Looking at Degas’s Bathers’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 68:4, Fall, 331–41.