Teaching and research interests include 19th and 20th-century European painting and sculpture with an emphasis on Romanticism and Symbolism; courses recently taught include Van Gogh and the 1890s, Picasso, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism and its off-shoots, as well as excursions in the Italian Renaissance, particularly Michelangelo.
Alhadeff has long been working on a book researching the state of people of color--free and enslaved--in France during the opening decades of the 19th century. His work focuses on the images of the Other as drawn by Theodore Gerricault, a leading proto-Romantic artist of the period. Aware of diversity within current art historical studies, Alhadeff brings a sensitivity to questions of the estranged.
Single-author Volumes:
- Théodore Géricault: Painting Black Bodies. Confrontations and Contradictions. Routledge Research in Art History, Routledge, New York and London, 2020
- Émile Verhaeren: Essays on the Northern Renaissance: Rembrandt. Rubens, Grünewald and Others. Peter Lang Publishers, New York, Munich, Washington, 2012
- The Raft of the Medusa. Géricault, Art and Race. Prestel, Berlin, London, New York, 2003
Book Chapters:
- “Verhaeren on Rembrandt’s folie.” In Mental Illnes in Symbolism. Ed. by Rosina Neginsky, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Cambridge, 2017), 63-83
- “US and THEM: Camper’s odious ligne faciale and Géricault’s Beseeching Black.” In Blacks and Blackness in European Art of the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. by Adrienne L. Childs and Susan H. Libby (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 47-67
- “Fetis’s Coup de lance: Ensor and Émile Littre.” In Hommage: Robert Hoozee, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 1982-2012. Eds. by atherine Verleysen, et al. Ghent: Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 2014), 114-17
- “Spiritualisme en zelfvertering in Minnes ,Jongeling’ en ,De kleine Gekwetste’. In 200 jaar verzamelen: Collectieboek Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent. Ed. by Arnout Balis and Robert Hoozee (Gent: Amsterdam, 2000), 181-87
Catalogue Essays:
- “Serres chaudes: Inside-Outside, Outside-Inside”. In Nature’s Mirror. Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape. Exh. cat. Ed. by Jeffery Howe. Mc Mullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 95-102, 2017
- “Minne’s “drei heilege frauen” und eine toten kunstlern geschnitze bildwelt”. In George Minne. Ein Anfang der moderne. Exh. cat. Ed. by Arie Hartog. Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, das bildhauermuseum norden, Bremem, Wienand, 32-49, 2014
- “Minne’s , drie heilige vrouwen’ en ‘een door overleden kunstenaars uitgehouwen beeldenwereld.” In George Minne. Ein Anfang der moderne. Exh. cat. Ed. by Arie Hartog. Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, das bildhaernmuseum Norden, Bremen, Wienand 35-47 [in Flemish], 2014
Journal Articles:
- “Julian Barnes and The Raft of the Medusa.” The French Review 82. no. 2: 276-91, 2008
- “Meunier and Minne: Subterranean Visions and the Blue Summits of the Soul.” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 65 no 1: 23-35, 1989
Selected Honors and Awards:
- Kayden Fund, University of Colorado, 2019
- Guest lecturer at the University of Ghent,1997
- Guest lecturer for the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium 198
- Participant at the international Congress of the History of Art, Bologna, Italy, 1979
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Independent Study (N.E.H.)
- University of Colorado Faculty Fellowship, 1976
- Participant International Congress of the History of Art, Budapest, Hungary, 1969