Thomas Kirchner

Member of the steering committee

Thomas Kirchner studied Art History, History, and Philosophy in Bonn, Berlin, and Paris. He obtained his doctorate (Promotion) from the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität with a thesis on “L’expression des passions: Ausdruck als Darstellungsproblem in der französischen Kunst und Kunsttheorie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.” After working in the museum and exhibition sector, he served as Assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut der Freien Universität Berlin. From 1993 to 1995, Prof. Kirchner was a postdoctoral fellow (Habilitationsstipendiat) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He obtained his Habilitation (German postdoctoral degree) at the Freie Universität Berlin with the topic of “Der epische Held: Historienmalerei und Kunstpolitik im Frankreich des 17. Jahrhunderts.”After teaching as a Visiting Associate Professor in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, he was appointed Chair of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 1999 and, in 2002, took over as Chair of the Department of Medieval and Early Modern Art History at Goethe Universität in Frankfurt. Kirchner was a scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2011/12. He has taught as Visiting Professor at a number of European and North American universities and is a member of several academic advisory boards. Since February 1, 2014, he has been the Director of the German Center for Art History Paris (Max Weber Stiftung).