Wayne Franits

Wayne Franits
Distinguished Professor
CONTACT
Art and Music Histories
308 B Bowne Hall
Email: wefranit@syr.edu
Office: 315.443.5038
PROGRAM AFFILIATIONS
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Degrees
Ph. D. Art History, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1987
M. A. Art History, Queens College, City University of New York, 1981
B. A. Art History, State University of New York @ Stonybrook, 1978
Courses Taught
Undergraduate
- Paper Arts in the Low Countries, 1400-1700
- Baroque Art in Northern Europe
- Baroque Art in Southern Europe
- Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe
- Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting
Graduate
- Problems of Meaning and Interpretation in Northern European Art, 1400-1700
- Paper Arts in the Low Countries, 1400-1700
- Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting
- Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting
- Rembrandt and His Workshop
- Caravaggio and Caravaggism in Europe
- Art & Patronage in England, 1558-1702
Wayne Franits is a specialist in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art. His extensive publications have explored a variety of topics within the field, ranging from genre painting and portraiture to the work of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio. Franits's courses, particularly those on the M.A. level, tend to be tied to his research interests. In recent years, Franits has published books on the early seventeenth-century Dutch painters, Johannes Vermeer (2015) and Godefridus Schalcken (2018) as well as The Ashgate Research Companion to Dutch Art of the Seventeenth Century (2016).
He is currently pursuing research on late seventeenth-century art collections in English country houses, on Theodoor Rombouts’s portrayal of himself in his paintings, and on the art of Rembrandt during his early career in relation to contemporary genre painting.

"Honour and Shame in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art and Culture," by Wayne Franits, in: Questioning Pictorial Genres in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art, ed. M. Osnabrugge, Turnhout: Brepols, 2021, pp. 331-51.
”Genreschilderskunst,” in: De zeventiende eeuw, ed. by J. Noorman et al. Leiden: Leiden University Press 2021, pp. 357-76.
“A New Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen,” by Wayne Franits, The Burlington Magazine 163 (September 2021), pp. 806-811.
"Rembrandt and the Convention of the Scholar in Dutch Genre Painting," [Wayne Franits and Laura Thiel-Convery] in exhib. cat. Rembrandt: Portrait of a Man, Prague, National Gallery of Prague, 2020, pp. 33-45.
"A Bravo Examining Cheese: A 'New' Painting by Gerrit van Honthorst." In: Connoisseurship: Essays in Honour of Fred G. Meijer, Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2020, pp. 135-39.
Wayne Franits "'Keine Mühe der Welt gleicht dem Studium': Rembrandt und die Bildkonvention des Gelehrten in der niederländischen Genremalerei," in exhib. cat. Inside Rembrandt 1606-1669, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 2019-20, pp. 29-41 (co-authored with Laura E. Thiel-Convery).
(Jan. 14, 2020)
Professor Wayne Franits, Professor Joan Bryant and Julia Jessen G'20 curate exhibitions.
(Feb. 1, 2017)
Syracuse University recognizes professor Franits for his tremendous scholarly contributions and intellectual leadership
(Jan. 9, 2017)
Wayne Franits shared his expertise in 17th-century Dutch art this past December
(Oct. 27, 2015)
Wayne Franits lends drawing, expertise on Dutch painter Godefridus Schalcken
(April 15, 2015)
Professor Wayne Franits provides fresh insight into 17th-century Dutch master
(April 13, 2010)
Award supports two months of writing, research