Paris A. Spies-Gans is an award-winning writer and art historian who specializes in uncovering women’s stories. Her work moves between close looking, rigorous research, and broad historical inquiry, challenging conventional narratives to develop a deeper understanding of the past. 

Paris holds a PhD and MA in History from Princeton University, an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and an AB in History and Literature from Harvard University. Her first book, A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830 (2022), was published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in Association with Yale University Press. It was named one of the top art books of 2022 by The Art Newspaper and The Conversation and won several academic prizes.

Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Harvard Society of Fellows, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Yale Center for British Art, the Lewis Walpole Library, and Princeton University. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Lund Humphries book series Illuminating Women Artists, has written for LARB and The Atlantic, and has been invited to deliver public talks at the National Gallery (London), the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Harvard University, among other institutions. She has taught at Princeton and MIT.

As art by women has gained in attention, she has advised individual buyers, auction houses, and museums on acquisitions, attributions, language, and displays. She continues to consult on a private basis.

She is currently working on her second book, A New Story of Art (Doubleday/US and Viking/UK).

Read her recent profile in Getty Magazine.