Barbara Larson, PhD

Dr. Barbara Larson, professor of modern European art history, teaches 19th and 20th-century courses, including art and science in the 19th century, 19th-century European art, women and art, and modern art. 

Larson is a world-renowned scholar of science and 19th-century visual culture, with a focus on evolutionism, medicine, history of the brain and mind, and the art movement Symbolism. 

She is the author of The Dark Side of Nature: Science, Society, and the Fantastic in the Work of Odilon Redon, a book that delves into the scientific interests of Redon, a French artist.  She is lead editor of The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture and Darwin and Theories of Aesthetics and Cultural History.  Larson has contributed a number of catalogue essays to international exhibitions and authored many articles on issues in art and science.  She is a series editor of Art and Science since 1750 for Routledge Press, inclusive of volumes that explore how the arts are informed by emerging scientific theories and technologies. 

Larson has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Melbourne.