Suzanne Preston Blier
Suzanne Preston Blier is an art and architectural historian and specialist in Africa at Harvard University, holding a chair as the Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies. She has authored numerous award-winning books and articles on African Art and Architecture as well as related fields. Blier is a member of the Center for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard and a Faculty Associate of the Mellon Urban Initiative. In 2022 she was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a Blier is a past member of the Collège de France International Scientific and Strategic Committee. She is former President of the College Art Association and a former Board Member of the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Committee for the History of Art, and the Society for Architectural Historians. In 2018, she was honored with a Yoruba chieftaincy title, Otun Yeye Obalufon, and in 2023 with a Peace Corps’ Profile in Citizenship. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and her B.A. from the University of Vermont.
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Co-Curated with prof. Sarah E. Lewis.
August 31, 2024–January 5, 2025. University Teaching Gallery, Harvard Art Museums. What would be lost without an understanding of art of the Black world? The Harvard course Art of the Black World (History of Art and Architecture 178V and African and African American Studies 178X) addresses this question through an introduction to the history and study of arts of the larger African diaspora. The course is taught by two members of Harvard faculty, Sarah Lewis and Suzanne Preston Blier, who hold positions in the Department of History of Art and Architecture as well as in the Department of African and African American Studies. Black artists produced in a variety of media, with a particular focus on sculpture, prints, photography, and painting. Following lectures and discussions, the students spend time examining and researching the artworks shown in this gallery as well as those in other collections on campus and elsewhere. |
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BOOKS AND CATALOGUES
In 2011, two of Blier's articles, "Imaging Otherness in Ivory: African Portrayals of the Portuguese ca. 1492" and "Kings, Crowns and Rights of Succession: Obalufon Arts in Ife and Other Yoruba Centers" were selected for inclusion in The Centennial Anthology of the Art Bulletin comprising the 33 top articles over the journal's 100-year history. Blier was one of only three art historians (along with Meyer Shapiro and Leo Steinberg) to have two articles included. In 2015 she was honored with a Yoruba chieftaincy. In 2021 she was elected to the American Academy of Art and Sciences.
TEACHING AND MENtORING
Among the undergraduate and graduate students I have mentoredwho have gone on to become professionals in the field are (from HARVARD UNIVERSITY): Jody Benjamin, Aimee Bessire, Randall Bird, Alexander Bortolot, Kyrah Daniels, Mark Delancey, Mark Duerksen, Lauri Firstenberg, Cecile Fromont, Janet Hess, Genevieve Hyacinthe, Christina Knight, Sarah Lewis, Jessica Levin Martinez, Leora Maltz, Prita (Sandy) Meyer, Erin Moseley, Steven Nelson, Jennifer Peruski, Imani Roach, Gemma Rodrigues, Delelia Scruggs, Ruth Simbao, Theresa Sims, Jessica Williams Stark, Kevin Tervala, Rebecca Van Driver, Kristina Van Dyke, and Grete Viddal; (from COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY): Anne Allen, Anne d'Alleva, Florina Capistrano, Alisa Lagamma, Dominique Malaquais, John Peffer, Mary Nooter Roberts, Lynn Spriggs, Sarah Travis, Virginia Lee Webb, Gary Van Wyk.
