David Freedberg

David Freedberg is Director of the Warburg Institute of the University of London (since 2015), Pierre Matisse Professor of History of Art (since 2007) and, since 2000, Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University in New York. After studying in South Africa and at Yale and Oxford, he was awarded a PhD with a dissertation on »Iconoclasm and Painting in the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1566–1609«. He is best known for his work on censorship, iconoclasm and psychological responses to images, as well as for his work on the relationship between art and science. In his recent work he examines the significance of cognitive neurosciences for the understanding of art and images and researches the intersection of movement, embodiment and emotion. He is a Fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the scientific advisory board of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Research fields

Art and neuroscience; Dutch, Flemish, French and Italian painting of the 16th and 17th centuries; 16th and 17th-century history of science; theory and criticism.