Kymberly Pinder

Dean, College of Fine Arts

In 2012, Dean Pinder transplanted here from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she had been a professor of art history since 1996 and served as department chair and graduate program head. Before and during her teaching career she worked in the education and curatorial departments in museums and galleries, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters in New York and The Art Institute of Chicago. Dean Pinder graduated with a B.A. from Middlebury College and M.Phil, M.A. and Ph.D from Yale University, all in Art History. She writes, lectures and teaches in the U.S, and abroad on representations of race and religion in American Art including in the work of Romare Bearden, Dox Thrash and Kara Walker.

Dean Pinder edited Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History and her scholarship has appeared in The Art Bulletin, The Art Journal, Third Text, and The African American Review among other periodicals. Her latest book is Black Public Art and Religion in Chicago which was published by the University of Illinois Press.