Patricia Leighten
Professor Emerita of Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Patricia Leighten received her PhD from Rutgers University. Her field of research is late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century European art and politics, especially France, and the history of photography. She has won numerous awards and fellowships. The first art historian to publish a study of the importance of the anarchist movement for the development of twentieth-century modernism, in Re-Ordering the Universe: Picasso and Anarchism, 1897−1914
(Princeton University Press 1989), she extensively expanded on that subject in The Liberation of Painting: Modernism and Anarchism in Avant-Guerre Paris
(University of Chicago Press 2013). She is also co-author, with Mark Antliff, of A Cubism Reader: Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914
(University of Chicago Press 2008), trans. Le cubisme devant ses contemporains–Documents et critiques (1906-1914)
(Paris: Les Presses du réel, 2019) and Cubism and Culture
(Thames & Hudson 2001), trans. Cubisme et culture
(Paris: Thames & Hudson, 2002). She is currently researching photography and anarchist ideology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and presenting her scholarship at conferences and in publications.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
- Professor Emerita of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2016
Contact Information
- 114 S. Buchanan Blvd., Duke University, Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708
- Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708-0766
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patricia.leighten@duke.edu
(919) 684-2224
- Background
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Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Rutgers University 1983
- M.A., Rutgers University 1975
- B.A., University of Massachusets, Boston 1973
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Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Professor of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1998 - 2016
- Chair, Department of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2001 - 2007
- Recognition
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Awards & Honors
- CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award. American Library Association. 2014
- Millard Meiss Publication Fund. College Art Association. 2011
- Lansdowne Visiting Distinguished Scholar. English Department, University of Victoria. 2010
- School of Historical Studies/ Member. Institute for Advanced Study. 2000
- Fellow. National Humanities Center. 1995
- Fellow. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 1990
- Senior Fellow. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. 1989
- Expertise
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Subject Headings
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Global Scholarship
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Expertise
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- Publications & Artistic Works
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Selected Publications
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Books
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Antliff, M., and P. Leighten. Le cubisme devant ses contemporains – Documents et critiques (1906-1914). Les presses du réel, 2019.
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Leighten, P. The Liberation of Painting: Modernism and Anarchism in Avant-Guerre Paris. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
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Antliff, Mark, and Mark Leighten P. A Cubism Reader: Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
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Antliff, Mark, and Patricia Leighten. Cubisme et culture. Translated by C. -. M. Diebold, Thames and Hudson, 2002.
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Antliff, M., and P. Leighten. Cubism and Culture. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001.
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Leighten, P. Re-Ordering the Universe: Picasso and Anarchism, 1897-1914. Princeton University Press, 1989.
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Academic Articles
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Leighten, P. “Anarchist satire in pre-world War I Paris: The case of František Kupka.” Substance, vol. 46, no. 2, 2017, pp. 50–70. Manual, doi:10.3368/ss.46.2.50.Full Text
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Leighten, P. “The World Turned Upside Down: Modernism and Anarchist Strategies of Inversion in ’L’Assiette au beurre’.” Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, vol. 4, Penn State University Press, 2013, pp. 134–70.
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Leighten, P. “Modernist Abstraction, Anarchist Antimilitarism, and War.” Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, vol. 2, Dec. 2011, pp. 113–50.
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Leighten, P. “Artists in Times of War: Response to Ariel Dorfman’s 'Picasso’s Closet'.” Art Bulletin, Mar. 2009.
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Leighten, P. “Picasso's century (Comments on Pablo Picasso's The 'Frugal Repast', 'Head of a Sleeping Woman', 'Standing Nude', 'Painter and Model Knitting', and 'Face of Marie-Therese').” Queens Quarterly, vol. 105, no. 2, 1998, pp. 217–27.Link to Item
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Leighten, P. “Kees van Dongen: Art, Anarchism, & Audience.” Ideas, vol. IV/2, Research Triangle Park, NC: National Humanities Center, 1996, pp. 46–52.
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Leighten, P. “Reveil Anarchiste: Salon Painting, Political Satire, Modernist Art.” Modernism/Modernity, vol. II, Apr. 1995, pp. 17–47.Link to Item
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Leighten, P. “Cubist Anachronisms: Ahistoricity, Cryptoformalism, And Business-As-Usual in New York.” Oxford Art Journal, vol. XVII, Oct. 1994, pp. 91–102.Link to Item
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LEIGHTEN, P. “THE WHITE PERIL AND ART-NEGRE - PICASSO, PRIMITIVISM, AND ANTICOLONIALISM.” Art Bulletin, vol. 72, no. 4, 1990, pp. 609–30. Wos-lite, doi:10.2307/3045764.Full Text Link to Item
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Leighten, P. “Editor’s Statement: Revising Cubism.” Art Journal, vol. 47, no. 4, Dec. 1988, pp. 269–76. Scopus, doi:10.1080/00043249.1988.10792424.Full Text
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Leighten, P. “La Propagande par le rire: Satire and Subversion in Apollinaire, Jarry and Picasso's Collages.” Gazette Des Beaux Arts, vol. CXII, Oct. 1988, pp. 163–72.
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Leighten, P. “Clarence John Laughlin: The Art and Thought of an American Surrealist.” History of Photography, vol. XII, 1988, pp. 129–46.
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Leighten, P. “The Dreams and Lies of Picasso.” Arts Magazine, vol. LXII, no. 2, Oct. 1987, pp. 50–55.
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Leighten, Patricia. “Picasso's Collages and the Threat of War, 1912-13.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 67, no. 4, Dec. 1985, pp. 653–72. Manual, doi:10.1080/00043079.1985.10788297.Full Text Link to Item
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Leighten, patricia. “Critical Attitudes toward Overtly Manipulated Photography in the 20th Century, Part II.” Art Journal, vol. 37, no. 4, 1978, pp. 313–21.Link to Item
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Leighten, Patricia. “Critical Attitudes Towards Overtly Manipulated Photography in the 20th Century, Part I.” Art Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, Dec. 1977, pp. 133–38.Link to Item
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Leighten, P. “DeCarava at the Witkin.” Photograph, vol. I, 1977, p. 14and28.
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Book Sections
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Leighten, Patricia, and Mark Antliff. “Provincial Paris, Cosmopolitan Cubism.” The Primitivist Imaginary in Iberian and Transatlantic Modernisms, edited by Joana Cunha Leal and Mariana Pinto dos Santos, Routledge, 2023.
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Leighten, Patricia, and Mark Antliff. ““Kandinsky and Radical Ecology: States of Mind, States of Abstraction".” Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle., edited by Tracey Bashkoff and Megan Fontanella, Guggenheim Museum, 2021, pp. 29–39.
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Antliff, Mark, and Patricia Leighten. “Anarchist Modernism after Signac: Fauvism, Futurism, Cubism.” Paris 1900 and Post-Impressionism: Signac and the Indépendants, edited by Mary-Dailey Desmarais et al., Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2020.
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Leighten, Patricia. “Félix Fénéon’s Anarchist Avant-Gardism.” Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde--From Signac to Matisse and Beyond, Museum of Modern Art, 2020.
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Leighten, P. “A Politics of Technique: Fauvism and Anarchist Individualism.” Anarchism and the Avant-Garde: Radical Arts and Politics in Perspective, edited by Carolin Kosuch, Brill, 2019.
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Leighten, Patricia. “Le Début de l’engagement politique de Picasso: l’anarchisme et le modernisme en Espagne et en France (1897-1914).” Picasso et La Guerre, Gallimard/Musée de l’Armée/Musée national Picasso-Paris, 2019.
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Leighten, P. “America, with Burk Uzzle.” All About America: Photographs by Burk Uzzle, Ackland Museum of Art, University of North Carolina, 2016.
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Leighten, P. “Embattled Cubism: Picasso, Rivera and World War I.” Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.
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Leighten, Patricia. “The White Peril: Colonialism, L'art negre, and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.” European Ghosts: The Representation of Art from Africa in the Twentieth Century, Mu.ZEE Ostend, 2015.
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Leighten, P. “The white peril and l’art nègre picasso, primitivism, and anticolonialism.” Race-Ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History, 2013, pp. 233–60. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9780203614440-22.Full Text
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Leighten, P. “Café Scene; Salomé; Head of a Woman; Vase, Gourd and Fruit; Scallop Shells on a Piano; Still Life with Calling Card; and Ace of Clubs.” Picasso and the Allure of Language, edited by Susan Greenberg Fisher, Yale University Press, 2009.
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Leighten, P. “Réveil anarchiste: Salon Painting, Political Satire, Modernist Art.” Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority, edited by E. Ruin et al., 2007.
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Antliff, Mark, and Mark Leighten P. “Primitive.” Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Robert Nelson et al., 2003.
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Leighten, P. “Colonialism, l’art nègre, and les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, edited by C. Green and C. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Leighten, P. “Gary Kuehn: Metaphor and Metamorphosis.” Gary Kuehn, 1988, pp. 4–21.
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Book Reviews
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Leighten P, Patricia. “Passionate Discontent: Creativity, Gender, and French Symbolist Art by Patricia Mathews.” Modernism/Modernity, vol. 8, Apr. 2001, pp. 369–71.Link to Item
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Exhibitions, Screenings, & Performances
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Artistic Works & Non-Print Media
- Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
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Presentations & Appearances
- Anarchism and the Avant-Gardes. Symposium: Art and Anarchism. Musée nationale d’art modern/Centre Pompidou. December 15, 2022 2022
- “Kandinsky’s Radical Ecology,” co-authored with Mark Antliff. The trouble with “primitivism”. Uses of the past in iberian and transatlantic modernisms, International Conference. Art History Institute, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. May 26, 2022 - May 27, 2022 2022
- Photography and Anti-Authoritarianism: The Inter- and Postwar Career of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Fascism and the International Workshop. Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. May 24, 2018 - May 26, 2018 2018
- Cosmopolitan Cubism, Provincial Paris. Seminar: Other Criteria. Cubism(s) in Modern Art. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. April 5, 2018 2018
- Picasso and Rivera: A Conversation Across Time. Fascism and the International: Yesterday and Tomorrow. Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. June 17, 2017 2017
- A Politics of Technique: Fauvism and Anarchist Individualism. International Workshop: Anarchism in Culture. Re-assessing the Influence of a Manifold Libertarian Concept on European Modernity (1820s-1930s). German Historical Institute, Rome. September 2016 2016
- Embattled Cubism: Picasso, Rivera and World War I. Barnes Foundation. April 10, 2016 2016
- Ethics and the ‘Decisive Moment’: The Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's Anarchist Individualism. Annual meeting. Modernist Studies Association, Boston. November 2015 2015
- The Secret Life of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Lecture in Art History. Vanderbilt University. November 6, 2014 2014
- Picasso and His Times. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. March 29, 2014 2014
- A Politics of Technique: Fauvism and Anarchist Individualism. Symposium: 'Ideas that Bind: Approaches to Modernist Groups and Networks'. History of Art Department, York University (UK). July 12, 2013 2013
- Modernism, Antimilitarism and World War I. Conference series: 'Under the Sign of Amadeo'. Art History Institute, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal). July 12, 2013 2013
- Picasso and His Times. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. April 30, 2012 2012
- “From Mutual Aid to Radical Individualism: Neoimpressionism and Fauvism in Light of Anarchist Aesthetic Theory". Symposium: Pissarro's Politics in Context: Anarchism and the Arts in France, 1849-1900. Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. September 10, 2011 2011
- Resistance Begins at Home: Anticolonialism andVisual Culture. Annual meeting. College Art Association. February 2011 2011
- Modernism, Antimilitarism and War (and podcast). Keynote. Modernist Studies Association. November 11, 2010 2010
- A 'Rationale of Ugliness': Primitivism, Cubism and Its Audience, 1908-13. Norma U. Lifton Memorial Lecture in Art History. School of the Art Institute of Chicago. October 1, 2010 2010
- May Ray, Cubism and Primitivism. University of New Mexico Art Museum. April 6, 2010 2010
- Expatriates and Exiles. UAAC Annual Conference. December 6, 2008 2008
- Symposium: Modernism and Antimodernism: Theories, Visions, Ideologies, Politics, National Museum of Romanian Literature and the Amfiteatru Foundation. December 6, 2008 2008
- A ‘Rationale of Ugliness’: Primitivism, Cubism and Its Audience. University of Iowa. February 8, 2008 2008
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Service to the Profession
- Juror : National Humanities Center. 2013 2013
- Art Bulletin. 2012 2012
- Reader's Report. December 17, 2011 2011
- Reviewer for Promotion and Tenure. December 17, 2011 2011
- Session co-chair, with Marco Deyasi : College Art Association Annual Meeting. February 10, 2011 2011
- University of California Press, referee. December 16, 2010 2010
- Juror : ACLS. 2009 2009
- Outside Evaluator : Hobart and William Smith Colleges, promotion. 2009 2009
- UAAC Annual conference, Toronto, Session Co-organizer with Mark Cheetham and Mark Antliff : 'Modernist Expatriates'. 2008 2008
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