Dr. Kay Kriz

Biography

K. Dian Kriz is a Professor Emerita in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with distinction from Indiana University in 1966 and subsequently worked at Chemical Abstracts. She pursued her passion for art history, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Western Washington University in 1981, followed by a Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1984, and a PhD from UBC in 1991. Kriz joined Brown’s faculty in September of the same year. She is the author of several notable publications, including 'Idea of the English Landscape Painter: Genius as Alibi in the Early Nineteenth Century' (Yale, 1997) and co-editor (with Geoff Quilley) of 'Economy of Colour: Visual Culture in the Atlantic World, 1660-1830' (Manchester, 2003). Her book, 'Slavery, Sugar, Culture and Refinement: Picturing the British West Indies, 1700-1840' (Yale University Press, 2008) was awarded a prize by the Historians of British Art and was chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine in 2009. In addition, she has received fellowships from NEH, Mellon, and the Huntington Library, as well as a senior fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and a fellowship from the Yale Center for British Art. Kriz has taught courses on the art of the French Revolution, visual exchange between East Asia and Western Europe, and visual culture in the Atlantic world during the eighteenth century.

Research Interests