William L. Pressly
Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century European Art
Office: 1211-B Art-Sociology Building
Email: wpressly@umd.edu
Telephone: (301) 405-1481
William L. Pressly's scholarship is devoted to the art of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, with an emphasis on British painting. His numerous publications include two books on the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry: The Life and Art of James Barry (Yale University Press, 1981) and James Barry: the Artist as Hero (Tate Gallery, 1983). His edition of the memoirs of John Francis Rigaud appeared in The Journal of the Walpole Society in 1984. His book A Catalogue of Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library (Yale University Press) appeared in 1993, and he contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue John Singleton Copley in England (National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1995-96). In 1999, the University of California Press published his book The French Revolution as Blasphemy: Johan Zoffany's Paintings of the Massacre at Paris , August 10, 1792. His most recent book is The Artist as Original Genius: Shakespeare's “Fine Frenzy” in Late-Eighteenth-Century British Art ( University of Delaware Press , 2007). Currently he is working on a book examining James Barry's murals at the Royal Society of Arts, London.
Professor Pressly has held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London. Before joining the Maryland faculty in 1987, he had taught at Yale University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Duke University. At Maryland, he has served as Director of Graduate Studies and Chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology.