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., et al., editors. Histoires sociales de l'art. Une anthologie critique. Vol. 1 & 2, Les Presses du réel, 2016.
McWilliam, N. F. L’Histoire de l’art en France 1890-1950: Acteurs, institutions, enjeux. Les Presses du réel/ Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2014.
McWilliam, N. F. L’Histoire sociale de l’art. Edited by Neil McWilliam et al., Les Presses du réel/ Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2013.
McWilliam, N. F. Emile Bernard: Les Lettres d’un artiste (1884-1941). Les Presses du réel, 2012.
McWilliam, N. F., et al. L’art social en France de la Révolution à la Grande Guerre. 2012.
Bernard, Emile, and Neil McWilliam. Émile Bernard, au-delà de Pont-Aven. 2012.
McWilliam, N. F., et al. L’Action française et la culture. Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2010.
McWilliam, N., editor. Lines of Attack. Duke University Press, 2010.
McWilliam, N. Rêves de bonheur. L’Art social et la gauche française (1830-1850). Les Presses du réel, 2007.
McWilliam, N., and J. Hargrove, editors. Nationalism and French Visual Culture, 1870-1914. National Gallery of Art (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts), 2005.
Pages
McWilliam, N. F. “Michel Melot et l’historiographie d’Honoré Daumier (Accepted).” L’Histoire Sociale de l’art, edited by R. Froissart et al., Les Presses du reel, 2015.
McWilliam, N. F. “La Bataille romantique 1900-1950 (Accepted).” L’Histoire de l’art En France 1890-1950: Acteurs, Institutions, Enjeux, edited by Michela Passini and N. McWilliam, Les Presses du reel, 2014.
McWilliam, N. F. “Le Romantisme comme enjeu.” L’Histoire de l’art En France 1890-1950: Acteurs, Institutions, Enjeux, edited by N. F. NeilMcWilliam and Michela Passini, Les Presses du réel/ Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2013.
McWilliam, N. F. “Au-delà de la ’République des arts’: les artistes, l’état et le marché au 19e siècle.” Faire Art Comme on Fait Société. Les Nouveaux Commanditaires, edited by Christian Joschke, Les Presses du réel, 2013, pp. 515–32.
McWilliam, N. F. “Patrie et pédagogie: l’art national selon Léon Rosenthal.” Léon Rosenthal (1870-1932), Militant, Critique et Historien de l’art, Editions Hermann, 2013, pp. 209–22.
McWilliam, N. F. “A Sense of Place. Representing the Region in Nineteenth-Century France.” Impressionist France. Le Gray to Monet, edited by Simon Kelly, Saint Louis Art Museum, 2013, pp. 53–65.
McWilliam, N. F. “’L’Epoque n’a pas d’âme’. Critiques et chrétiens au Salon pendant la monarchie de juillet.” La Critique d’art de La Révolution à La Monarchie de Juillet: Enjeux et Pratiques, edited by Lucie Lachenal and Catherine Méneux, 2013.
McWilliam, N. F. “How to change the world: Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon.” Utopian Moments: Reading Utopian Texts, edited by J. C. Davis and Miguel Angel Ramiro Avilés, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2012, pp. 106–12.
McWilliam, N. F. “Au-delà de Pont-Aven: A la poursuite d’Emile Bernard.” Emile Bernard: Au-Delà de Pont-Aven, edited by Neil McWilliam, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2012, pp. 5–23.
McWilliam, N. F. “’Ténébreux compagnons de toute solitude’: Emile Bernard et la littérature.” Emile Bernard: Au-Delà de Pont-Aven, edited by Neil McWilliam, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2012, pp. 27–53.
Pages
McWilliam, Neil. “On Reading Histoire de l’art as an Anglo-Saxon.” Histoire De L’Art, no. 83, 2018.
McWilliam, Neil. “Towards a New French Renaissance: Memory, Tradition and Cultural Conservatism in France before the First World War.” Art History, vol. 40, no. 4, Wiley, Sept. 2017, pp. 724–43. Crossref, doi:10.1111/1467-8365.12339. Full Text
Michaud, Éric, et al. “Art, État et idéologies aux xixe et xxe siècles.” Perspective, no. 1, OpenEdition, June 2012, pp. 41–55. Crossref, doi:10.4000/perspective.484. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. “A la recherche de l'Amérique profonde: l'art patriotique contemporain et l'idée de communauté nationale.” Histoire De L’Art, no. 70, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2012, pp. 95–107.
McWilliam, N. F. “Emile Bernard, Vincent van Gogh et Octave Mirbeau: Critique de la critique.” Cahiers Octave Mirbeau, no. 18, Mar. 2011, pp. 169–77.
McWilliam, Neil. “Action francaise, classicism, and the dilemmas of traditionalism in France, 1900-1914.” Studies in the History of Art, vol. 68, 2005, pp. 269-+.
McWilliam, N. F. “Une Esthétique révolutionnaire? La Politique de l’Art social. Aux alentours de 1820-1850’.” Arts Et Sociétés, Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, Dec. 2004.
McWilliam, N. “Conflicting Manifestations: Parisian Commemoration of Joan of Arc and Etienne Dolet in the Early Third Republic.” French Historical Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, Duke University Press, Apr. 2004, pp. 381–418. Crossref, doi:10.1215/00161071-27-2-381. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. “Exercises de style. La Critique devant les Envois de Rome 1800-1873.” D’Ingres À Degas. Rome Et Les Artistes Français 1803 1873, Académie de France, Rome, 2003, pp. 139–49.
McWilliam, Neil F. “Champagne Socialism: Luxury in Fourier's Utopia.” Modern and Contemporary France, vol. 9, no. 2, May 2001, pp. 149–60.
Pages
Dunlap, C. Preface. 2016.
McWilliam, N. F., and N. Jungerman. “Entretien avec Neil McWilliam.” Florilettres, no. 136, Fondation de la Poste, July 2012, pp. 2–17.
McWilliam, N. F. Emile Bernard: Au-delà de Pont-Aven. Edited by Neil McWilliam, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Jan. 2012, pp. 118–118.
McWilliam, N. F. Sanat/Utopya. Mutluluk Hayalleri: Sosyal Sanat ve Fransiz solu (1830-1850). Iletisim Yayinlari, Nov. 2011, pp. 570pp.-570pp.
McWilliam, N. “'Un enterrement à Paris': Courbet's Political Contacts in 1845.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 125, no. 960, 1983, pp. 155–57. Manual, doi:10.2307/881205. Full Text
McWilliam, N. F. ’L’Epoque n’a pas d’âme’: Critiques et chrétiens au Salon pendant la monarchie de Juillet (Accepted). Edited by C. Méneux.
Emile Bernard. Au-delà de Pont-Aven. Creator. (2012)
Exhibition of the work of French Symbolist painter Emile Bernard (1868-1941), bringing together graphic works, painting, illustrated books, letters, photographs, and personal documentation, drawn from the collections of the Bibliothèque de l'INHA (Fondation Jacques Doucet), the Archives des musées de France (Louvre), the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and a private collection (France).69 items; catalogue published (118 pp.).