Eric Robertson (literary critic)

Eric Robertson is Professor of Modern French Literary and Visual Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research focuses primarily on 20th century French literature, especially poetry, and the visual arts, with particular emphasis on European Modernism and the avant-gardes. He is the author of Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor (2006), Writing Between the Lines (1995), a study of the bilingual novelist and essayist René Schickele, and various articles and chapters on 20th century French literature, especially poetry, and visual arts. He is also the co-editor of Yvan Goll - Claire Goll: Texts and Contexts (1997), Robert Desnos: Surrealism in the Twenty-First Century (2006), Dada and Beyond Volume 1: Dada Discourses (2011) and Dada and Beyond Volume 2: Dada and its Legacies (2012). Robertson recently completed a monograph on the poet and writer Blaise Cendrars for Reaktion Books. Further ongoing projects include a study of avant-garde art and virtual technologies.

Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor, published by Yale University Press, considers the close connections between the writing, painting and sculpture of Hans Jean Arp and reassesses his contribution to major artistic movements of the 20th century. This book was awarded the 2007 R.H. Gapper Book Prize.[1] The award, made annually by the Society for French Studies, is for the best book by a scholar working in Britain or Ireland in French studies.

In 2017-18, Robertson co-curated the international touring exhibition Arp: the Poetry of Forms with independent curator Frances Guy.[2] The exhibition was hosted by the Kröller-Müller Museum from May to September 2017 and by Turner Contemporary from October 2017 to January 2018. It was widely reviewed in the press and media, and The Guardian showcased it in 'The Best Art of Autumn 2017'.[3]

Robertson has given talks, written essays and contributed to exhibitions for art museums and galleries in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and North America. These include Almine Rech Gallery, Arp Museum, Stiftung Arp, Cabaret Voltaire, Connaught Brown, Hauser & Wirth, Kröller-Müller Museum, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, Nahmad Contemporary, Nasher Sculpture Center and Turner Contemporary.

In 2017, Robertson was the featured expert appearing in two short films on the writings of Hans Jean Arp and René Schickele shown as part of the exhibition Laboratoire d’Europe: Strasbourg 1880-1930 curated by the Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg.

From September 2018 to January 2019, the Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas, Texas) hosted the exhibition The Nature of Arp[4] which travelled to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice, Italy) from April to September 2019. At the opening symposium, Robertson presented the paper "Words Without Borders: Arp's Bilingual Poetry" and took part in the panel discussion.[5]