Stephen Bann’s research ranges broadly over issues relating to the representations of history and the dissemination of print images, with a special emphasis on France in the nineteenth century. His work has been widely influential in both these areas, and since 2000 he has held visiting fellowships and appointments at some of most prominent Research Institutes in Europe and America. Since 2008, he has also served as a guest curator for major exhibitions at the National Gallery, London, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon. Having published throughout his career as a critic and historian of modern art, he continues to be active in writing on the work of a number of contemporary artists.    

• Museum history and theory (especially curiosity and antiquarianism)
• Historical representation in painting and other visual media
• nineteenth-century print culture (France and Britain)
• English art criticism (Hazlitt, Pater, Stokes)
• 20th century avant-garde movements
• Post-modern media and installation art
• land art and garden/landscape theory