Neil McWilliam
Walter H. Annenberg Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History
Education
Ph.D., University of Oxford (United Kingdom) 1985
B.A., University of Oxford (United Kingdom) 1976
Overview
Neil McWilliam received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. His publications include Dreams of Happiness. Social Art & the French Left 1830-1850 (with a revised translation in French, 2007) and Monumental Intolerance, Jean Baffier, A Nationalist Sculptor in fin-de-siècle France and A Bibliography of Salon Criticism in Paris from the July Monarchy to the Second Republic 1831-1851 . His research focuses on the visual culture of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France, and in particular, on public sculpture, the Academy, art criticism, and the inter- relationship between aesthetics and political ideologies during the period. In recent years, McWilliam has published widely on the relationship between conservative politics and the arts in France, exploring the impact of nationalist groupings on artistic production, critical writing and art history in the decades before the First World War. His ongoing interest in the career of Symbolist painter Emile Bernard involves a particular focus on this artist's turn in the 1890s towards a strongly traditionalist artistic practice, and its ramifications for understanding the relationship between tradition and innovation in fin-de-siècle French art.
Expertise
History of art criticism, historiography and history of aesthetics, history of sculpture, 19th century French cultural and intellectual historyContact Information
114 S Buchanan Avenue, Bay 9, Dept of Art and Art History, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90764, Dept. of Art and Art History, Durham, NC 27708-0764
(919) 684-6081
Links
Projects
McWilliam, N. F. Scenes and Doctrines: Nationhood and Nationalism in French Art 1870-1914 (provisional title). 2003.
McWilliam, N. F. Monumental Intolerance. Jean Baffier, A Nationalist Sculptor in fin-de-siècle France. Penn State University Press, 2000.
McWilliam, N. F. Dreams of Happiness. Social Art and the French Left 1830-1850. Princeton University Press, 1993.
Hogarth. Studio Editions, London, 1993.
McWilliam, N. F. A Bibliography of Salon Criticism in Paris from the July Monarchy to the Second Republic 1831-1851. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
McWilliam, N. F., et al. A Bibliography of Salon Criticism in Paris from the Ancien Régime to the Restoration 1699-1827. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
McWilliam, N. F., and V. Sekules, editors. Life and Landscape: The Photographs of P.H. Emerson. Sainsbury Center of Visual Arts, 1986.
McWilliam, N. F. The Aesthetics of Reaction: Tradition, Identity and the Visual Arts in France, c. 1900-1914 (In preparation).
McWilliam, N. F. L’Histoire de l’art en France 1890-1950: Acteurs, Institutions, Enjeux (In preparation). Edited by M. Passini.
McWilliam, N. F., et al. L’Histoire sociale de l’art (In preparation). Les Presses du reel.
Pages
McWilliam, N. F. “David d’Angers et la socialisation de l’exemplarité.” L’Art Social En France de La Révolution à La Grande Guerre, edited by Neil McWilliam et al., 2012.
McWilliam, N. F. “Avant-garde Anti-Modernism: Caricature and Cabaret Culture in Fin-de-siècle Montmartre.” L’art de La Caricature, edited by Ségolène Le Men, Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest, 2011, pp. 275–95.
McWilliam, N. F. “Comment peindre un tableau fouriériste.” <em>Charles Fourier – l’écart Absolu</Em>, Musée des beaux-arts, 2010, pp. 50–65.
McWilliam, N. F. “Qui a peur de George Sand? Antiromantisme et antiféminisme chez les maurrassiens.” <em>L’Action Française et La Culture</Em>, edited by N. F. McWilliam et al., Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2010, pp. 173–84.
McWilliam, N. F. “’Michel Melot et l’historiographie de Daumier’.” L’Histoire Sociale de l’art, edited by Philippe Bordes, Les Presses du réel, 2010.
McWilliam, N. F. “’L’energie de la race’: La Provence dans la critique d’art de Joachim Gasquet.” Visages de La Provence, edited by Valerie Minogue and Patrick Pollard, Emile Zola Society, 2009, pp. 165–77.
McWilliam, N. F. “’Au-delà de la "République des arts": les artistes, l’étate et le marché au XIXe siècle’.” Faire Art Comme on Fait Société. Les Nouveaux Commanditaires, edited by Christian Joschke, Les Presses du réel, 2009, pp. 515–32.
McWilliam, N. F. “Emile Bernard’s Reactionary Idealism.” Academics, Pompiers, Official Artists and the Arrière-Garde: Defining Modern & Traditional in France 1900-1960, edited by N. Adamson and T. Norris, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009, pp. 25–49.
McWilliam, N. F. “‘Erudition et engagement politique: la double vie de Louis Dimier’.” L’Histoire de l’histoire de l’art En France Au XIXe Siècle, edited by R. Recht et al., La Documentation française, 2008, pp. 403–17.
McWilliam, N. “The Culture of Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism in Global Perspective: An Encyclopedia of Origins, Developments and Contemporary Transitions, edited by Guntram Herb, 2008.
Pages
McWilliam, N. “Gustave Courbet et la Franche-Comté. Besançon.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 143, no. 1175, 2001, pp. 116–17. Manual, doi:10.2307/889192. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. “Race, Remembrance and 'Revanche': Commemorating the Franco-Prussian War in the Third Republic.” Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians, vol. 19, no. 4, 1996, pp. 473–98.
McWilliam, Neil. “Monuments, Martyrdom, and the Politics of Religion in the French Third Republic.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 77, no. 2, JSTOR, June 1995, pp. 186–186. Crossref, doi:10.2307/3046097. Full Text
McWilliam, N. “Baroque in Croatia. Zagreb, Museum of Arts and Crafts.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 135, no. 1087, 1993, pp. 712–13. Manual, doi:10.2307/885765. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. “Presse, journalistes et critique d'art à Paris de 1849 à 1860.” Quarante Huit/Quatorze, Annual Publication of the Musée D’Orsay, vol. 5, 1993.
McWilliam, N. F. “Opinions professionnelles: critique d'art et économie de la culture sous la Monarchie de juillet.” Romantisme, vol. 71, 1991, pp. 19–30.
MCWILLIAM, N. “Limited Revisions: Academic Art History Confronts Academic Art.” Oxford Art Journal, vol. 12, no. 2, Oxford University Press (OUP), Jan. 1989, pp. 71–86. Crossref, doi:10.1093/oxartj/12.2.71. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. “Art, Labour, and Mass Democracy: Debates on the Status of the Artist in France around 1848.” Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians, vol. 11, no. 1, Mar. 1988, pp. 64–87.
MELOT, M. “Daumier and Art History: Aesthetic Judgement/Political Judgement.” Oxford Art Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, Oxford University Press (OUP), Jan. 1988, pp. 3–24. Crossref, doi:10.1093/oxartj/11.1.3. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. “Objets retrouvés.” Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians, vol. 10, no. 1, Wiley, Mar. 1987.