Prof. Dr. Johannes Grave has been Professor of Modern Art History (with a focus on European Romanticism) at Friedrich Schiller University Jena since 2019. Previously, he was Professor of Historical Image Studies/Art History at Bielefeld University, where he was also a deputy spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center “Praktiken des Vergleichens”.

Grave studied Art History, Medieval Latin Philology, Medieval History and Philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg. In 2005, Grave completed his doctorate at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena with a thesis on Goethe as a collector of prints and drawings. After working as a research associate at the Department of Art History at the University of Basel, and as deputy director of the German Forum for Art History/Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art Paris, he completed his habilitation at the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Basel in 2012. The thesis’ topic comprises architectural representation in the Quattrocento.

In addition to numerous fellowships and awards, Grave was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) in 2020. He was also awarded the Hans Janssen Prize for European Art History by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen). In 2023, he was elected a member of the Academia Europaea; since 2024, he has been one of the vice presidents of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

He is also one of the founders and editors of the French-German journal “Regards croisés. Revue franco-allemande d’histoire de l’art, d'esthétique et de littérature comparée”.

Grave’s research focuses on questions of image theory and historical image concepts; temporality of the image and image reception; practices of comparison; art, art theory and art history around 1800; Italian painting of the early Renaissance, and French painting of the 17th to 19th centuries.

The list of publications can be viewed at https://www.kuk.uni-jena.de/234/prof-dr-johannes-grave.