Théo de Luca

Théo de Luca is a PhD candidate in the History of Art. He is currently preparing his doctoral dissertation on French painter Nicolas Poussin under the supervision of Professor Nicola Suthor. His research interests include: the Italian High Renaissance, the Baroque, postwar American and European painting and sculpture, the bonds between pre-Modern and Modern art, and the concepts of space and time.

He received a B.A. in History of Art and Archaeology with a minor in Aesthetics from the Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, after completing his years of Lettres Supérieures and Première Supérieure at the Lycée Montaigne in Bordeaux. He also holds a Master 1 (M1) in Arts, Literatures and Languages from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and an M.A. in History of Art with Distinction from University College London (UCL), where his research was supervised by Professor Briony Fer. At Yale, he was the recipient of the Berthe Corr and James Corr Memorial Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. He is currently a European Studies Graduate Fellow at the The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center. In Summer 2023, he will pursue dissertation research at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, and the learning of German at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, as the recipient of an award from the German Department at Yale and the Max Kade Foundation. In Fall 2023, he will be a Daniel Arasse Fellow at the École française de Rome and the Académie de France in Rome – Villa Medici.

Prior to joining Yale’s doctoral program in the History of Art, the Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König in Cologne published in 2020 Théo de Luca’s debut book on the 1981 exhibition ‘A New Spirit in Painting,’ which he presented at London’s Royal Academy of Arts (RA). A New Spirit in Painting, 1981: On Being an Antimodern features an essay he authored, as well as interviews he conducted with Georg Baselitz, Rainer Fetting, Anthony d’Offay, Thaddaeus Ropac, Jean-Louis Froment, Tim Marlow, Sir Norman Rosenthal, and Sir Nicholas Serota.

In parallel with his research, he is active in art criticism. In 2021, he collaborated with Almine Rech Gallery in Paris, Aspen, and New York, writing essays for monographic and group exhibitions. These included focuses on painters such as Günther Förg, Alejandro Cardenas, and Nathaniel Mary Quinn, as well as a Salon de Peinture, which brought together artists from the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Most recently, his work has been featured in publications about American and European painting. A conversation with French painter Claire Tabouret appears in the catalogue Almine Rech Gallery published for the artist’s coincidental exhibitions at its Paris location and the Musée Picasso. A conversation with American painter Andrea Marie Breiling is part of the book Almine Rech Gallery and Night Gallery published on the artist’s spray paint paintings. He also contributed four exhibition catalogues to Michael Werner Gallery’s publishing program: one on German painter Florian Krewer, two on French painter Eugène Leroy, and one on German painter Georg Baselitz.