Jillian Lerner specializes in nineteenth-century visual culture, with an emphasis on print, early photography, and commercial visual attractions. She studied art history at Columbia University, completing her PhD in 2006 under the direction of Jonathan Crary and Anne Higonnet.

She is the author of two books: Graphic Culture: Illustration and Artistic Enterprise in Paris, 1830–1848 (McGill-Queens University Press, 2018) and Experimental Self-Portraits in Early French Photography (Routledge, 2021). Dr. Lerner’s research has also been published in Grey Room, History of Photography, and Oxford Art Journal. Her new work on nineteenth-century photography is forthcoming in The Art Bulletin (December 2023) and a J. Paul Getty Museum exhibition catalogue, Hippolyte Bayard and the Invention of Photography (April 9 -July 7 2024).

Dr. Lerner is currently Chair of Undergraduate Studies in Art History, affiliated faculty in the Bachelor of Media Studies Program, and a Green College Leading Scholar for 2022-24.

History of photography, nineteenth-century visual culture, media studies