She has published widely on the history of British art and culture and on gender, sexuality, the city and visual representation.
Her latest book, British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Postwar Britain, which includes material delivered as the Paul Mellon Lectures at the Victoria & Albert Museum and Yale University in 2023-24, will be published by Yale UP for the Paul Mellon Centre in autumn 2025.
[3] In her exploration of the subject, she also included studies on "vaginal imagery," "video pornography," and "visibility and the female body.
[6][7] Nead details different ways of living in urban London of the Victorian Era, looking at architecture and public spaces.
[12] Art Journal also notes how Nead challenges the idea that women were "invisible" in Victorian England.
Giving examples of work from artists such as Albrecht Durer whose depiction of the female body symbolises femininity and sexualisation.
[15] The book covers not just the art of film, but how the moving picture helped shape society's perceptions of topics as diverse as sexual imagery to astronomy.
"[17] The exhibit focused on the Victorian trope of the "fallen woman" who face difficult, morally ambiguous choices in society.
[17] Many of the "fallen women" were unmarried, single mothers who were often forced to give up their children to Foundling hospitals.