William Norman Bryson (born 1949) is an Anglo American art historian who authored several major works that were particularly influential in the 1980s and 1990s. He graduated with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1977, and subsequently worked as a professor at King's College until 1988, when he moved to Rochester, NY. There, he worked for two years at the University of Rochester before moving to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1990. In a shift from that earlier period, he now is faculty at

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

, and primarily writes about contemporary art, such as

Sharon Lockhart Sharon Lockhart (born 1964) is an American artist whose work considers social subjects primarily through motion film and still photography, often engaging with communities to create work as part of long-term projects. She received her BFA from th ...

. His career is characterized by a move to a more literary theory-based approach to art history, including ''Word and Image: French Painting of the Ancien Régime'' (1983), ''Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze'' (1986), and ''Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix'' (1987). He was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

in 1997.

Works

''Word and Image: French Painting in the Ancien Regime'' (1981) ''Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze'' (1983) ''Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix'' (1984) ''The Logic of the Gaze'' (1986) ''Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation'' (1989) ''Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting'' (1990) ''In Medusa's Gaze: Still Life Paintings From Upstate New York Museums'' (1991) ''Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations'' (1993) ''Inside/ Out: New Chinese Art'' (1998)

References

External links

* Archived classes by Norman Bryson *http://www.arthistorylab.com/2014/07/26/art-history-courses-norman-bryson/
Norman Bryson's entry
in Onlin
Dictionary of Art Historians
Harvard University faculty American art historians 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American historians 1949 births Living people University of California, San Diego faculty 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers {{US-art-historian-stub