The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory congratulates faculty member Jillian Lerner on the publication of her first book; Graphic Culture: Illustration and Artistic Enterprise in Paris, 1830-1848 (McGill-Queens University Press). Jillian is an alumna (BA 1998) and long-time sessional lecturer in the department.
This exploration of print culture traces changing conditions of vision and social history in July Monarchy Paris. Analyzing a variety of caricatures, fashion plates, celebrity portraits, city guides, and advertising posters from the 1830s and 1840s, Lerner investigates how quotidian print imagery transformed the material and symbolic dimensions of metropolitan life. The author’s interdisciplinary approach situates the careers and visual strategies of graphic artists such as Paul Gavarni and Achille Devéria in a broader context of urban entertainments and social practices. Graphic Culture illuminates a rich terrain of artistic collaboration and commercial experimentation that linked the worlds of art, literature, fashion, publicity, and the theatre.
Praise for Graphic Culture
“Graphic Culture is deeply researched, brilliantly argued, and thoroughly compelling. Jillian Lerner has established a reputation for her ground-breaking scholarship in this field, and this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century French visual culture and the role images played in the construction of modernity.”
– Richard Taws, University College London
Copies of Graphic Culture can be ordered directly from publisher.
