Frans Grijzenhout focuses his research on the broad field of art history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, especially in relation to culture and politics. He has published on the history of the Rijksmuseum, the critical reception of seventeenth-century Dutch painting in later times and about the philosophy cultural heritage. Lately, Grijzenhout has been actively examining painting from the Dutch Golden Age. This led inter alia to the publication The Burgher of Delft: A Painting by Jan Steen (Amsterdam, 2007). In this book Grijzenhout, together with his colleague Professor Niek van Sas, discovered the identity of those portrayed in the painting The Burgomaster of Delft and His Daughter (1655) by Jan Steen, which was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 2004.

Grijzenhout has been affiliated with the UvA as professor of ‘Cultural Heritage, Restoration and Conservation, particularly of movable property'. Since 2008, he has been chairman of the Department of Art, Religion and Cultural Studies at the FGw. Before coming to the UvA, he worked at the Netherlands Office for Fine Arts and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage. Grijzenhout holds several executive and advisory positions, at the Mondriaan Foundation and Amsterdam University Press among other organisations. In his new position Grijzenhout will succeed Prof. Eric Jan Sluijter, who will be accorded emeritus status in April 2011.

Since 2009, Grijzenhout has been involved in the NWO-supported project, The power of satire. In autumn 2010 he will act as guest curator at Teylers Museum in Haarlem for the exhibition The Madness of King George, with English cartoons from around 1800.