Kathryn Brown

Kathryn Brown is an art historian at Loughborough University (UK). She specialises in modern and contemporary art, art markets, and the digital analysis of art. She is the editor of the Contextualising Art Markets series (Bloomsbury Academic). Her research focuses on the intersections of artificial intelligence, art history, and museum practices. She is currently leading a research project to design a museum exploring the social and creative impacts of AI.

The project

Title: Claude Monet’s Water Lilies and Computer Vision: New Perspectives on Stylistic Evolution

"Computer vision, a branch of artificial intelligence, significantly expands the range of analytical tools available to art historians. However, its adoption within the humanities has been slow, and recent debates in this area have largely been dominated by computer science (Bishop 2018). As a result, the theoretical frameworks that shaped the modern discipline of art history are often absent from studies situated at the intersection of AI and art (Wasielewski 2023).

This project seeks to redress this imbalance. I am currently collaborating with a team in the United States led by Professor James Wang (Penn State University) to bring art history and computer vision into closer dialogue. Our aim is to open new perspectives on Claude Monet’s work while simultaneously advancing research in artificial intelligence. Our first article on this topic, Computational Investigation of Abstraction in Claude Monet’s Water Lilies through Brushstroke Analysis (co-authored with Jia Li, Chaewan Chun, Kathryn Brown, and James Wang), is currently under review by a leading journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Conceptually innovative, the project moves beyond the purely formal analyses typically associated with computer vision. It explores whether AI can reconfigure the study of Impressionism and help construct a shared analytical vocabulary across disciplines. This research will be of interest to art historians, museum professionals, computer scientists, conservation specialists, and the wider public."

Hosting institution: Université Paris 8

Selective Bibliography

• (dir.) Artificial Intelligence and Art History: Looking at Images in an Algorithmic Culture (Proceedings of the British Academy, Feb 2026)
• Art Auctions: Spectacle and Value in the 21st Century (Lund Humphries/Sotheby’s Institute of Art, 2024)
• Dialogues with Degas: Influence and Antagonism in Contemporary Art (Bloomsbury 2023)
• Henri Matisse (Reaktion, 2021)
• (dir.) Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History (Routledge, 2020)
• Matisse’s Poets : Critical Performance in the Artist’s Book (Bloomsbury, 2017)