Roy, Stéphane
At Carleton, I teach 17th- and 18th-century European art history and architecture. My main area of expertise is 18th-century French art (especially prints), with British art coming in close second. I am also supervising the department’s practicum program, which offers students an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in museums and galleries across the city – further information can be found on the following pages: the graduate practicum, and the undergraduate practicum.
My doctoral dissertation focused on the art of printmaking during the French Revolution; it explored the intersection of art and propaganda at a pivotal moment in European history, a period which saw the emergence of modern political culture. A portion of this research has been included in the exhibition La Révolution par la gravure, held at the Musée de la Révolution française in Vizille, near Grenoble, in 2002.
I have since broadened my scope of inquiry to the circulation and trade of printed images in 18th-century Europe, dealing with issues of cultural exchanges and artistic cosmopolitism. Over the years, I explored a wide variety of topics, from Captain Cook’s illustrated travel accounts and their reformatting for an American audience to Anglo-French print culture and book history. New fields of investigation include 18th-century exhibition practices, the use of mixed printmaking techniques as performance and spectacle, and self-fashioning in the public space through the marketing of art.
In addition to my research and teaching experience in academia, I held curatorial duties in the museum world (Yale Center for British Art, 2005-2008; Portrait Gallery of Canada, 2010). I collaborated on and/or co-curated a number of exhibitions, including Art and Emancipation in Jamaica (2007), The Four ‘Indian Kings’: War and Diplomacy in 1710 (2010), and Making the News in 18th-Century France (2012).
Besides currently working on a number of articles, my projects include two book-length manuscripts. The first will provide a new survey of print trade in the Age of the French Revolution; the second, tentatively entitled Another Tale of Two Cities: Prints and Visual Culture in 18th-Century London and Paris, will consider prints and printmaking from a transnational perspective. I am also developing a database of print advertisements published in Parisian newspapers from 1770 to 1800, a project stemming from a SSHRC-funded research (2011-2013) entitled Lasting Impressions: The Persistence of Ancien Régime Print Culture during the French Revolution. This free, fully searchable web-based tool is designed to provide details about various engravings published in the last quarter of the 18th century; more broadly, it will also federate ephemeral pieces of art criticism into one coherent corpus. The launching of the database is set for Spring/Summer 2015.
Carleton’s Art Gallery and the Archives and Research Collections at the MacOdrum Library abound with 18th-century material (rare books, pamphlets, newspapers), making the university an almost self-sustainable research repository for anyone interested in this period. Combined with other existing resources in the Capital region (National Gallery of Canada, Library and Archives Canada, etc.), students interested in exploring and studying the Enlightenment will find plenty of material to support their research.
Feel free to send me an email or to come by my office to discuss any particular issue pertaining to 18th-century studies.
Selected publications:
“Circulation des images et pratique de l’illustration à l’époque de Clément-Pierre Marillier”, Imager la Romancie. Dessins de Clément-Pierre Marillier pour ‘Le Cabinet des fées’ et ‘Les Voyages imaginaires’ (1785-1789), Paris, Hermann, 2013, pp. 63-86.
Making the News in 18th-Century France, Ottawa, Carleton University Art Gallery, 2012, 91p.
“Imiter, reproduire, inventer. Techniques de gravure et statut du graveur en France au 18e siècle”, Intermédialités, no 17, Spring 2011, pp. 31-51.
“La gravure française à l’épreuve du modèle anglais: traditions et révolutions graphiques à la fin du 18e siècle”, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in European Prints from 1789 to 1889, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York, Georg Olms Verlag, 2010, pp. 26-44.
(With W. McAllister Johnson and Véronique Meyer) “Le Chevalier de Damery (1723-1803) et la gravure de collections privées en France au XVIIIe siècle”, Nouvelles de l’estampe, no 223, mars-avril 2009, pp. 9-49.
“La gravure dans le rayonnement culturel de la capitale. Paris et Londres au miroir”, A Paris sous la Révolution. Nouvelles approches de la ville, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008, pp. 169-180.
“The Art of Trade and the Economics of Taste: The English Print Market in Paris, 1770-1800”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, June 2008, pp. 167-192.
“La circulation du portrait gravé en Europe. Création et diffusion de l’image du grand homme pendant la Révolution”, European Print Culture in International Relations from the 18th to the 19th Century, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York, G. Olms, 2007, pp. 201-222.
(With Philippe Despoix) “Patagons et Polynésiens. Premières estampes du Pacifique : un nouveau régime de l’image imprimé”, Études littéraires, vol. 37, no 3, Summer 2006, pp. 57-75.
“Un Panthéon des ‘personnages qui ont éminemment marqué dans la Révolution’: les portraits des Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française”, La Révolution par la gravure. Les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française: une entreprise éditoriale d’information et sa diffusion en Europe (1791-1817), Paris, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002, pp. 50-75.
“Le retentissement de Brumaire en images: rupture ou continuité?”, Du Directoire au Consulat: Brumaire dans l’histoire du lien politique et de l’État-nation, Lille, CHRENO, 2001, pp. 581-593.
“L’édition d’imagerie populaire pendant la Révolution: piratage ou entente tacite? Paul-André Basset et ses contemporains”, Nouvelles de l’estampe, n° 176, May-June 2001, pp. 5-19.
“Von der Edition zum Monument: Die Repräsentation des Bürgersinns in den Portraits der Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française”, Das Internationale Bildgedächtnis eines Welthistorischen Ereignisses : Die Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française in Frankreich, den Niederlanden und Deutschland 1791-1815, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001, pp. 213-258.
Articles in preparation:
“Accounts of the South Pacific across the Atlantic World: 18th-Century American Editions of Cook’s Voyages”.
“William Woollett’s Death of General Wolfe and its Reception in 18th-Century France”