Frey taught at CU Boulder from 1976- 2001, but since taking early retirement in 2002, lives in New York and Paris, France. At the University of Colorado, she served as both Acting Chair and Associate Chair of the Department of French & Italian, alternately directing the programs for both Graduate and Undergraduate Studies.  She was named 3 times as a Van Eck Prize-winner's mentor,  nominated once for a teaching award and twice for an advising award.

Frey holds a BA from Antioch College, MA from the University of Texas at Austin, MPhil and PhD in French literature from Yale University. She was originally trained as a painter and studied printmaking with S.W. Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris. She is a specialist in the art, literature, and culture of 19th and 20th century France. In recent years, Frey has been focused on the Belle Epoque (1880-1914).   Her biography of the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Toulouse-Lautrec, a life, 1994: Viking Press, New York;  Weidenfeld-Nicolson Publishers, London (and ten other editions and translations)  received more than 100 reviews and won the 1995 Pen Center USA West Literary Award in nonfiction. It was chosen one of the best books of 1994 by Publisher's Weekly in the United States, and by the London Spectator and the Yorkshire Evening Press in Great Britain. Apollo Magazine selected it as the best art biography of 1994. It was also a finalist for the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award in biography in the United States. The New York Times named it one of the notable books of 1995.

Frey has also written essays for the catalogues of Toulouse-Lautrec Exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Diego Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, etc. and published work on Gustave Flaubert, George Sand and other 19th century cultural icons.  In 1999, she was curator of the exhibition Toulouse-Lautrec in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the Denver Art Museum.  

Her recent honors and awards include: Distinguished Scholar, Montana State University, (2002); "Big 12" Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin (2000); Judge, Pen Center USAWest Literary Award in Non-fiction (1998).  She is listed in Who’s Who in America, The World Who’s Who of Women, Dictionary of International Biography, Directory of American Scholars, Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Writers, etc.
 
 

You can e-mail Julia Frey by clicking here.