Born on 17th April 1918 at Prague, Frank Popper has lived successively in Vienna, London, Rome and Paris where he has definitely settled in 1955.>

After having studied at the Universities of London, Rome and Paris (Sorbonne), he has obtained, in 1966, a doctorate in Aesthetics with a dissertation on "L'image du mouvement dans les arts plastiques depuis 1860" (The image of movement in the visual arts since 1860), and in 1970, a Doctorat d'Etat (Doctorat Ÿ­ lettres et sciences humaines) entitled "L'art cinètique. Naissance d'une nouvelle tendance dans le champ artistique" (Kinetic Art. The birth of a new trend in the artistic field).

Since 1962, he is a member of the Institut d'Esthetique in Paris and at the beginning of 1969, he is among the founders of the Art Department of the University of Paris VIII at Vincennes where he heads the Visual Arts Department from 1970 to 1983. In 1976, he is appointed full professor of Aesthetics and the Science of Art, and in 1985 he is made Professor Emeritus at the same University.

Frank Popper is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and Honorary Editor of the scientific journal Leonardo.

A first reflection by Frank Popper, inaugurated in an article in the UNESCO Courier in September 1963 and elaborated in several publications, in particular in Naissance de l'art cinetique (Paris 1967), Origins and Development of Kinetic Art (London and Greenwich, Connecticut 1968) and Die kinetische Kunst (Cologne 1975), dealt with the manifestations of light and movement in modern art and especially with works of optical art, three-dimensional kinetic works (machines and mobiles) and lumino-kinetic works. Frank Popper was able to ascertain that the artists using new techniques and new materials for creating their works of art had transformed the image of movement in art into a true art of movement.

Several exhibitions organised by him, especially Kunst-Licht-Kunst at the Stedekijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Holland (1966) and Lumi?e et Mouvement at the Musèe d?Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1967) managed to demonstrate this development.

Among his numerous studies devoted to kinetic artists, the monograph on Yaacov Agam (New York: Abrams) reached its 4th edition in 1990.

After elaborating his research into kinetic art, Frank Popper has attempted to demonstrate that the notions of environment and spectator participation in the arts converged strongly since the middle of the 1960s and he tried to redefine the relationships between the artist, the theoretician and the spectator, based on this assumption, in a book entitled Art, Action and Participation (1975--1980).

Finally, the study of the mutation of the relations between the artist and the spectator in new forms of contemporary art (Conceptual art, Realist social art, Environmental art, Electronic, Digital and Virtual art) has induced him to concern himself with technoscientific and interactive art, and in particular with the artistic use of the laser, of holography, video, the computer, telecommunications and ecotechnological devices.

The catalogue of the exhibition Electra. Electricity and Electronics in the Art of the XXth Century (Musèe Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, 1983) conceived by Frank Popper as well as his book Art of the Electronic Age (London and New York 1993--1997) bear witness to his interest for an art which allows technical actions and aesthetic thoughts to merge.

His book From Technological to VIrtual Art was published by the MIT Press in 2007. In October 2011 he published the paper "Le virus perturbateur dans l’art des nouveaux mèdias" in the Journal Recherches en Esthètique