Dr. Cherise Smith

Biography

Cherise Smith holds the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is also a faculty member in the Department of Art and Art History. With a Ph.D. from Stanford University, she has concentrated her research on African American art, history, photography, performance, and contemporary art. Smith was the inaugural residential Scholar for the African American Art Research Initiative at the Getty Research Institute, where she undertook the project titled 'Healing Old Wounds', analyzing the works of contemporary artists such as Carrie Mae Weems and Charles Gaines in the context of appropriating conceptualism to address traumatic aspects of American history. She is the author of 'Michael Ray Charles: Studies in Blackness' (University of Texas Press, 2020), which received the Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Additionally, her scholarly contributions include essays published in prestigious journals such as Art Journal and American Art. Smith is the Executive Director of the Art Galleries for Black Studies, where she leads initiatives to expand the university's art collections related to people of African descent and has established new exhibition spaces. She has extensive curatorial experience from notable institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Research Interests

Experience