Mark Ledbury took his degrees at the University of Cambridge and the University of Sussex, and his first academic post was as lecturer in Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth. He then moved to the University of Manchester where he was lecturer in Art History, until he joined the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, in 2003. As Associate Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark, he oversaw the expansion of the research program’s ambition and reach. He devised, planned and ran workshops, conferences and partnerships and worked to develop and oversee a lively residential scholars’ program. As Director of the Power Institute, Professor Ledbury ensures that the Power furthers its research and public engagement mission through talks, conferences and the support of research and publications.

Professor Ledbury’s research interests are in the history of European art, particularly French Art, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and he is specifically interested in the relationships between theatre and visual art and in concepts of genre in Enlightenment philosophy and aesthetics. He is committed to historically and archivally informed scholarship, has published widely on Boucher, Greuze, David, and on inter-arts networks and relationships.