Norman Bryson

Norman Bryson

Professor of Art History, 1990-1999
Norman Bryson photo

Norman Bryson served as Professor of Art History at Harvard from 1990 - 1999. He graduated with a Ph.D from Cambridge University in 1977. Following this, he joined Kings College as both a Professor and Fellow and Director of Studies in English. In 1988, he joined the University of Rochester as the first Director of the newly formed PhD program in Visual and Cultural Studies. He was Professor of Art History at Harvard from 1990 to 1998. From there, he moved to London to direct the PhD program in Visual and Theoretical Studies at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. He is currently Professor of Art History at the University of California, San Diego. He has published widely in the areas of eighteenth-century art history, critical theory, and contemporary art. Over the past five years, contemporary art has been at the forefront of his writing, complemented by teaching in fine art schools (rather than art history departments) including Goldsmiths College, London, the Jan van Eyck Academy at Maastricht, the Netherlands, and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Bryson current research and teaching focus on modern art and visual culture in the West, China and Japan, on photography, and on the philosophy of visual representation.