Medialab Prado

James Elkins grew up in Ithaca, New York. He got the BA degree in English and Art History and for the last twenty-five years he has lived in Chicago; he got a graduate degree in painting, and then switched to Art History, got another graduate degree, and went on to the PhD in Art History, which he finished in 1989. (All from the University of Chicago.) Since then he has been teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism.

His writing focuses on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature. Some of his books are exclusively on fine art (What Painting Is, Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?). Others include scientific and non-art images, writing systems, and archaeology (The Domain of Images, On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them), and some are about natural history (How to Use Your Eyes).

Current projects include a series called the Stone Summer Theory Institutes; a book called The Project of Painting: 1900-2000; and several edited books: a series called The Art Seminar; one called Theories of Modernism and Postmodernism in the Visual Art; and edited books on W.G. Sebald, representations of pain in art, the PhD in studio art, and the university-wide study of images.