Overview

A comprehensive exploration of the evolutions, innovations, and legacies of French art from the late eighteenth-century to the present Charting the artistic eras from the transformative upheavals of the French Revolution to the dynamic global intersections of contemporary art in the 21st century, A Companion to French Art, 1789 to the Present provides an unparalleled analysis of French art. Edited by Richard Taws and Natalie Adamson, this authoritative volume offers new ways to consider the broad history of French art through critical attention to diverse objects, mediums, and practices that have shaped French art across centuries. Shedding new light on how art has interacted with and challenged established narratives, this volume features 30 essays by leading and emerging scholars, offering insights into a wide range of topics, including revolutionary iconography, modernist movements, colonial legacies, and contemporary art's engagement with global issues. Going beyond traditional frameworks, these chapters present new methodologies and innovative interpretations that reflect the evolving questions and challenges in art history. Addressing essential themes while expanding the boundaries of how French art is understood today, A Companion to French Art, 1789 to the Present: Offers comprehensive coverage of French art with a uniquely wide topical and temporal scope Examines diverse media and materials including painting, sculpture, photography, film, ceramics, industrial design, and fashion Engages with cutting-edge methodologies such as post-colonial critique and feminist theory Draws on in-depth archival research and previously unexplored materials for fresh insights Essential for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in French art history, A Companion to French Art, 1789 to the Present is also an invaluable resource for academics, museum professionals, and researchers worldwide.

Full Product Details

Author:   Natalie Adamson ,  Richard Taws ,  Dana Arnold (University of Southampton)
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Imprint:   Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN:  

9781119370468

ISBN 10:   1119370469
Pages:   550
Publication Date:   20 November 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

List of Contributors Author Bios Introduction: Natalie Adamson and Richard Taws PART 1: POST-REVOLUTIONARY VISIONS 1.            Richard Taws The Smiling Face of Terror: Étienne Béricourt’s French Revolution 2.            Jillian Lerner After the Terror, Passing Scenes: Historical Experience in Robertson’s Paris Phantasmagoria  3.            Mechthild Fend Portraits and Pathologies: Clinical Pictures in Early Nineteenth-Century France 4.            Susan L. Siegfried Costuming in History Painting 5.            Iris Moon Staging Fantasies of Regression in Sèvres Porcelain at the Time of Louis-Philippe 6.            Kelly Presutti The Album des Deux Frontières: Lithography at the Nation’s Limit PART 2:  MATERIALISING MODERNITY 7.            Veronica Peselmann The Ground of Painting: Gustave Courbet’s L’Atelier, 1855 8.            Amy Ogata Designing with Iron in Mid-Nineteenth Century France 9.            Helene Birkeli At the Crossroad of the Plantation: Camille Pissarro and Colonial Infrastructure  10.          S. Hollis Clayson Gloomy Renoir 11.          Mary Hunter Playing Doctor with Toulouse-Lautrec: Male Friendship, Medicine, and Identity 12.          André Dombrowski Monet’s Series Reconsidered: Instantaneity in Standard Time PART 3: MEDIA, PUBLICS, SUBJECTS 13.          Neil McWilliam In the Tradition: Grappling with the Past in the Long Nineteenth Century 14.          Juliet Bellow Rodin’s Hanakos and Hanako’s Rodins 15.          Malcolm Turvey The “Plastic” Arts and Cinematic Specificity: L’Inhumaine (1924) 16.          Toby Norris The Public Turn in French Art During the Great Depression 17.          Susan Laxton Surrealism’s Revolution of the “Never Seen” 18.          Jan Baetens The Film Photo-Novel “made in France”     PART 4: CONTESTING THE NATION 19.          Phoebe Scott Ambiguously “French”? Vietnamese Artists in Paris 20.          Kathleen Rawlings and Alastair Wright ‘What the Black Man Contributes’: Présence Africaine, l’art nègre, and Modernism in Post-War Paris 21.          Sheila Crane 1953 / 1963: Bidonville Aesthetics and Genealogies of Modernity from Algiers 22.          Noit Banai Universality as a Radical Form: The Philips Pavilion at Expo 58   23.          Ming Tiampo The World in Question: Conjunctural Solidarities in Narrative Figuration   24.          Maureen Murphy The “École de Paris” in Dakar PART 5: ARCHIVES OF THE PRESENT 25.          Kim Timby Building the “Museum without Walls”: Photographic Art Reproduction, 1860–1960 26.          Déborah Laks Unlearning at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris 27.          Rakhee Balaram Seeing the Dark Continent in the City of Lights: Women’s Transnational Networks in the 1970s in the Capital of the Arts 28.          Sophie Cras “Frenchy But Chic”: Art and Fashion in 1980s Les Halles 29.          Danièle Meaux Photographic Investigations: Between Art, Journalism and the Human Sciences 30.          Katarzyna Falecka Unsunk Archives: The Resurfacing of Colonial Historical Records in Contemporary Art Index

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Author Information

Natalie Adamson is a Professor in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. She specializes in postwar French art, abstraction, and cultural politics. She is the co-editor of several studies on twentieth-century European art and material culture and the author of Painting, Politics and the Struggle for the École de Paris, 1944-1964 and In Focus: Around the Blues 1957, 1962-3, by Sam Francis. Richard Taws is a Professor in the History of Art Department at University College London. His work focuses on the intersections of art, media, and politics in modern France. His publications include Time Machines: Telegraphic Images in Nineteenth-Century France and The Politics of the Provisional: Art and Ephemera in Revolutionary France. He has also co-edited volumes on art, technology, and media in early modern and modern Europe.

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