Participant Info

First Name
Paris
Last Name
Spies-Gans
Country
United States
State
MA Massachusetts
Affiliation
Harvard University, Society of Fellows
Website URL
https://parisaspiesgans.com
Keywords
Art, Gender and Sexuality, Britain, France, Women artists, Education, Print culture, Revolutionary era, Women's history
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a historian and a historian of art, with a focus on gender and culture in Britain and France during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Currently, I am a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.

I specialize in the study of art by women, and the ways in which women have navigated sociopolitical barriers to participate in their societies through art, literature, and other modes of intellectual and creative expression. My research emphasizes the often unprecedented nature of such activity at moments of political revolution and change.

Recent Publications

A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830 (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in Association with Yale University Press, 2022)

“Why Do We Think There Have Been No Great Women Artists? Revisiting Linda Nochlin and the Archive,” The Art Bulletin (December 2022), https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2022.2070397.

“Colonialism in the Photographic Archive,” PMC Notes, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (January 2022), https://issuu.com/paulmelloncentre/docs/pmc_notes_20.

“Mary Wollstonecraft” and “Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun,” in Women Who Changed the World, 4 vols., ed. Candice Goucher (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2022).

“Living, Breathing Expressions of Self: On Jennifer Higgie’s The Mirror and the Palette,” Los Angeles Review of Books (January 18, 2022), https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/living-breathing-expressions-of-self-on-jennifer-higgies-the-mirror-and-the-palette/. Review of Jennifer Higgie, The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution, and Resilience: Five Hundred Years of Women’s Self Portraits (Simon & Schuster, 2021).

“Fortyish Woman Seeks Meaning of Life,” Los Angeles Review of Books (March 4, 2021), https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fortyish-woman-seeks-meaning-of-life/. Review of Mia Kankimäki, The Women I Think About at Night: Traveling the Paths of My Heroes (Simon & Schuster, 2020).

“Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Revolutionary Painter,” Art Herstory (December 18, 2020), https://artherstory.net/marie-guillemine-benoist-revolutionary-painter/.

“‘Don’t Regret. Remember’: Frictions of History and Gender in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” Los Angeles Review of Books (May 11, 2020), https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dont-regret-remember-frictions-of-history-and-gender-in-celine-sciammas-portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire. Review of Céline Sciamma, Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, 2019.

“Towards a Historically Representative Canon: Integrating Gender and Data for a Revised Model of the Past,” in Jeffrey Collins, Elizabeth Fraser, Elizabeth Mansfield, Amelia Rauser, Kristel Smentek & Wendy Bellion, Paris Spies-Gans, Nancy Um, Amy Freund, “Reflections on HECAA at 25: A Roundtable Discussion,” Journal18 Issue 9 Field Notes (Spring 2020), http://www.journal18.org/issue9/reflections-on-hecaa-at-25-a-roundtable-discussion/.

“Mary Moser: Portraitist,” Journal18, Issue 8 Self/Portrait (Fall 2019), http://www.journal18.org/issue8/mary-moser-portraitist/.

“Exceptional, but not Exceptions: Public Exhibitions and the Rise of the Woman Artist in London and Paris, 1760-1830,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 51, no. 4 (Summer 2018): 393­-416, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/699954.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Britain and France
Expertise by Geography
England, France, United Kingdom, Western Europe
Expertise by Chronology
17th century, 18th century, 19th century, Early Modern, Modern
Expertise by Topic
Art & Architectural History, Book History, Children & Youth, Family, Gender, Literary History, Material Culture, Museums, Pedagogy, Public History, Rebellion & Revolution, Religion, Sexuality, Women