Call for Papers - The Paris Fine Art Salon, 1791-1881
A three-day conference to be held in the University of Exeter, 4-6
September 2013

Conference papers to be delivered in either English or French.

Keynote speakers:
Professor Susan Siegfried (University of Michigan)
Professor Pierre Vaisse (University of Geneva)

Professor Richard Wrigley (University of Nottingham)

The Paris Fine Art Salon dominated French artistic life throughout the
nineteenth century. Organised by the State, and usually lasting
between two and three months, the Salon was an annual or biennial
showcase for the contemporary visual arts and a conspicuous
manifestation of French artistic hegemony. It provided artists with
the most important opportunity available to present their work to the
public, attract a clientele, launch and sustain a career, and compete
for state honours and prizes, and public and private buyers and
commissions. For the public it was a huge social and cultural event,
attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors from across Europe and
beyond.

The conference will coincide with the completion of a three-year,
AHRC–funded project, entitled "Painting for the Salon? The French
State, Artists and Academy, 1830-1852." The participants in the
project, Professor James Kearns (Principal Investigator), Dr Alister
Mill (Research Fellow) and Harriet Griffiths (doctoral candidate) will
each present elements of their research at the beginning of the second
day, which will be devoted to the period 1830-1852. The first day will
be devoted to the period 1791-1830, the third to 1852-1881.

We invite proposals for papers which explore issues and ideas centred
around the Paris Salon as an artistic and cultural event in the period
1791-1881. Areas that may be considered include the Salon’s importance
for the careers of the exhibiting artists, its relationship to other
exhibition spaces in Paris and the provinces, its management by the
State, the shifting role of the Académie des Beaux-arts and/or the
Salon jury, viewing conditions in the Salon, the impact of changes in
Salon management on such issues as participation rates and stylistic
innovation, and the exhibition’s significance as a social as well as
artistic event.

Please email James Kearns at J.Kearnsexeter.ac.uk with a title and
150-word abstract of your proposed 20/25-minute paper by 25 January
2013.