Bridget Alsdorf

Bridget Alsdorf is Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, where she teaches European art from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Her work explores the central role played by artists in illuminating problems of broad philosophical import; the social nature of artistic creation and form; and the cross-fertilization of artistic media, including literature, theater, and film. She is the author of two books with Princeton University Press, Fellow Men: Fantin-Latour and the Problem of the Group in Nineteenth-Century French Painting (2013) and Gawkers: Art and Audience in Late Nineteenth-Century France (2022). She is currently writing a book on intimacy and collaboration in Scandinavian art during and after “the modern breakthrough,” informed by the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. Chapters explore painting, photography, and silent cinema, centering on a series of couples who made extraordinary artworks together. Alsdorf also co-edits a series on nineteenth-century art for nonsite (nonsite.org). She has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the American-Scandinavian Foundation.