Background
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth was born on September 1, 1968, in Warsaw, the Polish People's Republic (now Poland).
Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland
The Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw where Ewa Lajer-Burcharth received her Master of Arts degree.
425 E 25th St, New York, NY 10010, United States
The City University of New York where Ewa Lajer-Burcharth received her Doctor of Philosophy degree.
(This strikingly original book examines the artistic and p...)
This strikingly original book examines the artistic and personal crisis of French painter Jacques-Louis David during the aftermath of the Reign of Terror. David, twice imprisoned, struggled to recast his artistic identity in a world of disintegrating political and cultural values. The book casts new light on the artist's self-representation, his Sabine Women, and the importance of his unfinished portrait of Juliette Recamier.
https://www.amazon.com/Necklines-Jacques-Louis-David-after-Terror/dp/0300074212
1999
(Adapted from the lecture she delivered at the Institut fü...)
Adapted from the lecture she delivered at the Institut für Kunstkritik, Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth's essay explores the dimension of self-reflexivity in the work of eighteenth-century French painter, Jean-Siméon Chardin. Focusing on the material aspects of Chardin's practice, Lajer-Burcharth asks: In what ways were Chardin's painterly procedures "his own," and what were the implications of his possessive and personalized approach to the process of making?
https://www.amazon.com/Ewa-Lajer-Burcharth-Chardin-Material/dp/1934105473
2011
(The book Interiors and Interiority explores the historica...)
The book Interiors and Interiority explores the historical connections between the notions of architectural interior, subjective space, human interiority, and represented space including virtual space.
https://www.amazon.com/Interiors-Interiority-Beate-S%C3%B6ntgen/dp/3110340437
2015
(In response to recent developments in pictorial practice ...)
In response to recent developments in pictorial practice and critical discourse, Painting Beyond Itself: The Medium in the Post-Medium Condition seeks new ways to approach and historicize the question of the medium. Reaching back to the earliest theoretical and institutional definitions of painting, this book, based on a conference at Harvard University in 2013, focuses on the changing role of materiality in establishing painting as the privileged practice, discourse, and institution of modernity. Myriad conceptions of the medium and its specificity are explored by an international group of scholars, critics, and artists. Painting beyond Itself is a forum for rich historical, theoretical, and practice-grounded conversation.
https://www.amazon.com/Painting-Beyond-Itself-Post-Medium-Condition/dp/3956790073
2016
(What can be gained from considering a painting not only a...)
What can be gained from considering a painting not only as an image but also as a material object? How does the painter's own experience of the process of making matter for our understanding of both the painting and its maker? The Painter's Touch addresses these questions to offer a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of François Boucher, Jean-Siméon Chardin, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, entirely recasting our understanding of these painters' practice. Using the notion of touch, she examines the implications of their strategic investment in materiality and sheds light on the distinct contribution of painting to the culture of the Enlightenment.
https://www.amazon.com/Painters-Touch-Boucher-Chardin-Fragonard/dp/0691170126
2018
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth was born on September 1, 1968, in Warsaw, the Polish People's Republic (now Poland).
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth attended the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw, Poland, where she received a Master of Arts degree. Then she obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the City University of New York.
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth is the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. She teaches modern and contemporary art focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, post-1970s art, and critical theory. Her current research interests include historical conceptualization of drawing as a practice, a medium and discourse; the issue of artistic individuality in its different historical formulations; the relation between space and subjectivity; the question of interiority; the dialectic of privacy and publicness; the historical conceptions of painting as a practice, discourse and an institution; art practice in a revolutionary situation, and art, architecture and technology in the Enlightenment.
She is also known as an organizer of international conferences such as "Interiors and Interiority," an exploration of the historical connections between the notions of the architectural interior, subjective space, and visual and literary representations of space, and "Painting Beyond Itself," a consideration of the historical vicissitudes of painting as a medium and an institution, and "Inside/Out: Exploring Gender and Space in Life, Culture, and Art."
Lajer-Burcharth is also known for publishing works on art and artists. Her book Necklines: The Art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror (1999) is about the work of a noted French artist between 1794 and 1800. The author discusses the unresolved tension the artist had within his body and connects it to popular prints, medical literature, fashion and psychoanalysis. In Chardin Material (2011), she examines a crucial moment in Jean-Siméon Chardin's career when he temporarily abandoned his still life practice and turned to painting genre scenes. The Painter's Touch: Boucher, Chardin, Fragonard (2018) continues her radical and original accounts of eighteenth-century French painting.
She co-edited and contributed to Interiors and Interiority (with Beate Söntgen), Painting Beyond Itself: The Medium in the Post-Medium Condition (with Isabelle Graw), and Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium (with Elizabeth M. Rudy). She also contributed to academic journals on art history and feminist studies. Lajer-Burcharth is currently working on a book project on drawing in the eighteenth century.
(What can be gained from considering a painting not only a...)
2018(Adapted from the lecture she delivered at the Institut fü...)
2011(In response to recent developments in pictorial practice ...)
2016(The book Interiors and Interiority explores the historica...)
2015(This strikingly original book examines the artistic and p...)
1999Ewa Lajer-Burcharth is a member of the Association of Art Historians. She was also a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art in Paris.