Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

Keywords: portraiture, art history, American art, material culture, early American studies, colonial Virginia

About Me: I am currently the Associate Curator of American Art at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was formerly the 2018-2020 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the American Philosophical Society Library & Museum.

My book project, The Politics of Portraiture in Colonial Virginia, is a social history of portraiture in Virginia before 1776. It argues that colonists consciously diverged from English artistic practices to resist imperial dominance, while simultaneously participating in empire building, which resulted in a regionally specific hybridized practice of portraiture. Through case studies of individual portraits and the examination of broader trends, it investigates how colonists mobilized portraiture to construct social relationships.

My research interests include US art history and material culture, colonial arts of the Americas, and early American studies.

Recent Publications: “‘Constantly to look at me’: Slavery and the Development of Colonial American Portraiture,” Winterthur Portfolio (Summer/Autumn 2022): 127-166.

“The Portrait of Hanadagá•yas; or, George Washington Reconsidered,” American Art (Summer 2022): 6-12.

With contributions to the Illustrated Checklist by Emily A. Margolis, Dr. Franklin, Citizen Scientist. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2021.

“The Story of Edward Hill and the African Groom at Shirley Plantation,” Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art 6, no. 2 (Fall 2020)

Colonial Virginia Portraits (www.colonialvirginiaportraits.org), Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, Digital Project, 2019.