Research Interests
My main research interests lie in the interdisciplinary area between 19th century French literature and art and have focused most notably on Emile Zola and the group of artists whom he knew -in particular Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Degas, Rodin, Renoir, Gervex, Clairin, Bazille -or with whose work he was familiar -Bouguereau, Cabanel, Lépine. A second area of research has focused upon the American artist James Whistler, who studied art in France, was a close friend of a number of French writers and artists such as Mallarmé, Octave Mirbeau, Robert de Montesquiou, Théodore Duret, Gustave Courbet, Degas, Monet, Manet, Fantin-Latour, Charles Drouet and the Belgian artist Alfred Stevens. So far I have published a book on Whistler and Robert de Montesquiou, La Chauve-souris et le Papillon (1990), and a hundred essays and articles in books and periodicals such as the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and the Burlington Magazine, exploring in the main ways in which these connections exerted significant influence on the output of both the artists and writers involved. Recent research projects include the editing and publication of the French correspondence of James Whistler in conjunction with the Centre for Whistler Studies of the University of Glasgow and a study of the actress Méry Laurent, who brings together a number of my research interests, as she was a close friend of Mallarmé and Manet, and knew a number of other 19th century French writers and artists, including Zola, Montesquiou, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Huysmans, Proust, Whistler and Gervex. In this long study I examine the various ways in which her image is treated in the works of the artists and writers in her circle so that she became ultimately a fin de siècle icon.This study is about to appear in Essays in French Literature. A shorter study of her influence on the novels of Zola has also been published recently in La Représentation du ré dans le roman. My current research is on Zola and art.

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