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Since February 2014 Thomas Kirchner has been the Director of the German Center of Art History in Paris. He received his PhD at the University of Bonn with a thesis on “Expression des passions. Ausdruck als Darstellungsproblem der französischen Kunst und Kunsttheorie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts” (Mayence 1991). He was Assistant Professor at the Freie Universitat Berlin where he submitted his habilitation treatise on “Der epische Held. Historienmalerei und Kunstpolitik im Frankreich des 17. Jahrhunderts” (Munich 2001, French translation Paris 2008). Before directing the institute in Paris he was Professor of Art History at the universities of Heidelberg and Frankfurt where he taught modern art and art theory. His research has focused on French art and art theory of the Ancient Regime, on art and sciences, art and politics, art and the history of emotions, the artistic life in Paris during the Ancien Regime, and art after World War II. He was a visiting professor at French and American universities. In 2011/12 he was a scholar of the Getty Research Institute.