Sophie Cras

Holding a degree from Sciences Po and ENS (Ulm) Sophie Cras was Maîtresse de conférences at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne before joining Sciences Po as Professor of Art History in 2026. Her research focuses on contemporary artistic and museum practices, particularly as they intersect with the history of capitalism and globalization. She is committed to a history of art informed by social sciences, political and economic history, and the history of science, technology and media.

The Artist as Economist. Art and Capitalism in the 1960s (Yale University Press, 2019) examines the creative and critical perspective that artists brought to the economic issues of their time, using their visual artworks (paintings, sculptures, videos, performances, collages, mail art, and editions) as a laboratory to explore value, currency, financial transactions, and international trade. This interest in artists’ economic knowledge and expertise was further explored with the 2022 publication of an anthology of artists’ writings on economics, from the 19th century to the present (B42), as well as by a book co-authored with Charlotte Guichard, Vendre son art de la Renaissance à nos jours (Le Seuil, 2025), which offers a long-term history of the art market centered on the artists’ perspective.

Her latest book, L’œil capitaliste. Musées, commerce et colonisation (Flammarion, 2026), unearths museums that are now forgotten but which, in Europe and across all continents, accompanied the globalization of trade and the colonial occupations of the late 19th century: commercial museums. Their vast collections were intended to support entrepreneurs’ economic intelligence and contribute to the commodification of the world.

Her current research encompasses two main areas.

First, she is working on a project entitled “Under Contract: A History of Artistic Commitment (19th–21st centuries),” which takes as its starting point a neglected source: the contracts binding artists to their dealers. The collective research program aims to collect these scattered sources; to trace the evolution of the form and content of these contracts over two centuries; and finally, to understand the shifts in the economic and political power dynamics they reveal, as well as how they shed light on artistic creation under constraint.

Her second area of research encompasses the images and imaginaries of capitalism: it examines how economists and economic practitioners have utilized images and visual media (sometimes in collaboration with artists) and how the arts construct a visual history of capitalism.

Juliette Theureau, Naviguer dans un déluge d'images : sélection, remploi et remédiation des images dans l'art de Nancy Graves (1968-1994).

2026 – Grand Prix at the Fontainebleau Art History Festival (with Charlotte Guichard)

2026 – Pierre Lafue Foundation Prize (with Charlotte Guichard)

2019 – Olga Fradiss Prize

2018 – Prize from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States of America

2018 – Terra Foundation Translation Prize

2017 – Recipient of the Alliance Foundation Joint Project Grant (with Alexander Alberro)

2015 – Thesis Prize from the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris

• Editor of the journal Grey Room (MIT Press)
• Member of the editorial board of Critique d’art
• Member of the editorial board of Perspective
• Member of the editorial board of the National Institute of Art History (INHA)

• Tatiana Rybaltchenko, Sophie Cras. The financial system as public resource. Kerry Greaves; Lindsay Caplan. Model collapse, Manchester University Press, 2025, 9781526177551. ⟨10.7765/9781526177551.00021⟩. ⟨halshs-05509927⟩
• Sophie Cras. The Commercial Museum, the State, and the Liberalism Effect. Grey Room, 2025, 101, pp.38-61. ⟨10.1162/GREY.a.5⟩. ⟨hal-05509842⟩
• Aurélien Catin, Sophie Cras, Pierre-Michel Menger, Vanessa Théodoropoulou. L’art est-il un travail ?. Perspective - la revue de l'INHA : actualités de la recherche en histoire de l'art, 2025, pp.25-40. ⟨10.4000/14eqt⟩. ⟨hal-05509881⟩
• Camille Richert (Dir.). Chaleur humaine. Silvana Editoriale, pp.172, 2023, 9788836653836. ⟨hal-04139741⟩
• Sophie Cras. Exhibiting economic knowledge: esthetic spaces and dismal science. Arts & Sociétés - Lettre du séminaire, 2022, 125. ⟨hal-03713496⟩
• Sophie Cras. De modestes propositions. Ecrits d’artistes sur l’économie du 19e siècle à aujourd’hui. B42, 2022. ⟨halshs-03867554⟩
• Sophie Cras. L’économie au musée. Une histoire des savoirs économiques exposés. Culture et Musées, 2020, 36, pp.186-190. ⟨10.4000/culturemusees.5772⟩. ⟨hal-03192098⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Aux origines de la valeur ». Franck Scurti, Flammarion, pp.213-218, 2020. ⟨halshs-03867629⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Quand Hartung ne connaissait pas la crise ». Thomas Kirchner; Antje Kramer-Mallordy; Martin Schieder. Hans Hartung et l’abstraction. « Réalité autre, mais réalité quand même », Presses du Réel, pp.214-231, 2020. ⟨halshs-03867624⟩
• Sophie Cras. « L’économie au musée. Une histoire des savoirs économiques exposés ». Culture et Musées, 2020, 36, pp.186-190. ⟨halshs-03867582⟩
• Sophie Cras. Quand Hartung ne connaissait pas la crise. Thomas Kirchner; Antje Kramer-Mallordy; Martin Schieder. Hans Hartung et l’abstraction. “Réalité autre, mais réalité quand même”, les presses du réel, pp.214-231, 2020, 9782378961398 2378961391. ⟨hal-03192120⟩
• Maggie Cao, Sophie Cras, Alex Taylor. Art and Economics Beyond the Market. American Art, 2019, 33 (3), pp.20-26. ⟨10.1086/707473⟩. ⟨hal-03192102⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Artistes en économistes ». Revue de l'Art, 2019, 206, pp.75-84. ⟨halshs-03867570⟩
• Sophie Cras. Artistes en économistes. Petite anthologie (19e-21e siècle). Revue de l'Art, 2019, 206. ⟨hal-03192072⟩
• Sophie Cras, Malcolm B. Debevoise. The Artist as Economist. Art and Capitalism in the 1960s. Yale University Press, 2019. ⟨halshs-03869759⟩
• Sophie Cras, Maggie Cao, Alex J. Taylor. « Art and Economics Beyond the Market ». American Art, 2019, 33 (3), pp.20-26. ⟨halshs-03867590⟩
• Sophie Cras. The artist as economist : art and capitalism in the 1960s. Yale University Press, 2019, 9780300232707. ⟨hal-03195124⟩
• Sophie Cras. Aux origines de la valeur. Franck Scurti, Flammarion, pp.213-218, 2019, 9782081482425 2081482428. ⟨hal-03192159⟩
• Sophie Cras, Constance Moreteau. Journals and images. Tracés : Revue de Sciences Humaines, 2018, #18, pp.101-114. ⟨10.4000/traces.9076⟩. ⟨hal-03192103⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Pinot Gallizio’s Cavern: Re-Excavating Postwar Paris ». Catherine Dossin. France and the Visual Arts since 1945: Remapping European Postwar and Contemporary Art, Bloomsbury, pp.75-89, 2018. ⟨halshs-03867635⟩
• Sophie Cras, Constance Moreteau. « Les revues et les images ». Tracés : Revue de Sciences Humaines, 2018, Les sciences humaines et sociales au travail (I) : Faire revue, Hors-Série, pp.101-114. ⟨halshs-03867600⟩
• Sophie Cras. L’économie à l’épreuve de l’art. Art et capitalisme dans les années 1960. Presses du Réel; Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art, 2018. ⟨halshs-03867562⟩
• Sophie Cras. L'économie à l'épreuve de l'art. Art et capitalisme dans les années 1960. Presses du réel, 2018, 978-2-84066-910-4. ⟨hal-03195123⟩
• Sophie Cras. Pinot Gallizio’s Cavern: Re-Excavating Postwar Paris. Catherine Dossin. France and the Visual Arts since 1945: Remapping European Postwar and Contemporary Art, Bloomsbury, pp.75-89, 2018, 9781501355752 1501355759. ⟨hal-03192125⟩
• Sophie Cras. Art and its Values. Critique d'art, 2017, 49, pp.15-25. ⟨10.4000/critiquedart.27116⟩. ⟨hal-03192108⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Face à l’histoire : retour sur l’exposition ‘Soulèvements’ ». Histoire@Politique : revue du Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po, 2017. ⟨halshs-03867615⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Robert Filliou face à l’économie du multiple dans les années 1960. Standardisation, démocratisation et marchandisation ». Andreas Beyer; Etienne Jollet; Markus Rath. Wiederholung. Répétition. Wiederkehr, Variation und Übersetzung in der Kunst, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte; Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH, pp.183-198, 2017. ⟨halshs-03867644⟩
• Sophie Cras. « L’art et ses valeurs ». Critique d'art, 2017, 49, pp.14-25. ⟨halshs-03867609⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Dennis Oppenheim und das Ende des ticker tapes ». Archiv für Mediengeschichte, 2017, 17, pp.125-139. ⟨halshs-03867575⟩
• Sophie Cras. Robert Filliou face à l’économie du multiple dans les années 1960. Standardisation, démocratisation et marchandisation. Andreas Beyer; Étienne Jollet; Markus Rath. Wiederholung. Répétition. Wiederkehr, Variation und Übersetzung in der Kunst, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte; Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH, pp.183-198, 2017, 978–3-422–07400-2. ⟨hal-03192128⟩
• Sophie Cras. Dennis Oppenheim und das Ende des ticker tapes. Archiv für Mediengeschichte, 2017, pp.121-136. ⟨hal-03188629⟩
• Sophie Cras (Dir.). In-Focus : Larry Rivers, Parts of the Face: French Vocabulary Lesson, 1961. Tate, 2016, 978-1-84976-419-3. ⟨hal-03192167⟩
• Sophie Cras. « Öyvind Fahlström’s Impure Pop in a World of Impure Cold War Politics ». Annika Öhrner. Art in Transfer in the Era of Pop. Curatorial Practices and Transnational Strategies, Södertörn University, pp.193-214, 2016. ⟨halshs-03867651⟩
• Sophie Cras. Öyvind Fahlström’s Impure Pop in a World of Impure Cold War Politics. Annika Öhrner. Art in Transfer in the Era of Pop. Curatorial Practices and Transnational Strategies, Södertörn University, pp.193-214, 2016, 978-91-87843-64-8. ⟨hal-03192134⟩
• Sophie Cras. Prizes and Awards in Contemporary Art: Evaluation and Promotion in a Competitive System. Critique d'art, 2015, 45, ⟨10.4000/critiquedart.19146⟩. ⟨hal-03192114⟩
• Sophie Cras. Larry Rivers, de la Banque Française. Cahiers du Musee National d'Art Moderne, 2015, 133, pp.52-63. ⟨hal-03194570⟩
• Sophie Cras. Global Conceptualism? Cartographies of Conceptual Art in Pursuit of Decentring. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann; Catherine Dossin; Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel. Circulations in the global history of art, Ashgate, pp.167-182, 2015, 9781138295568 1138295566. ⟨hal-03192138⟩
• Sophie Cras. Wie verkauft man ein Bärenfell? Ein früher Fall von Kunstspekulation. Texte zur Kunst, 2014, 24 (93), pp.96-107. ⟨hal-03192116⟩
• Sophie Cras. Les Isotypes de Keith Haring : du graffiti au graphisme communicationnel. Histoire de l'art, 2013, 70, pp.95-104. ⟨hal-03194618⟩
• Sophie Cras. Art as an Investment and Artistic Shareholding Experiments in the 1960s. American Art, 2013, 27 (1), pp.2-23. ⟨10.1086/670682⟩. ⟨hal-03191858⟩
• Sophie Cras. Céramiques, éditions et Brushstrokes chez Leo Castelli. Camille Morineau. Roy Lichtenstein, Centre Pompidou, pp.248, 2013, 9782844266002 2844266002. ⟨hal-03192173⟩
• Sophie Cras, Hélène Valance. Face à l’histoire : retour sur l’exposition «Soulèvements». Histoire@Politique : revue du Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po, 2013, 19. ⟨hal-03192110⟩
• Sophie Cras. De la valeur de l’œuvre au prix du marché : Yves Klein à l’épreuve de la pensée économique. Marges - Revue d’art contemporain, 2010, 11, pp.29-44. ⟨10.4000/marges.446⟩. ⟨hal-03192092⟩