Kymberly N. Pinder is an American art historian, curator, and university administrator.

Education and Career

She received her PhD from Yale University in Art History in 1995. Pinder has taught and served in administrative roles at the University of New Mexico (Dean of the College of Fine Arts), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Professor, Chair of the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism and Director of the Graduate Program), and

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

. Starting in April 2020, Pinder served as the Acting President at

MassArt Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school ...

. Before taking on the position of Acting President at MassArt, she held the positions of provost and senior vice president of academic affairs. In addition to her role at MassArt, Dr. Pinder is a

Boston Public Art Commission Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mos ...

member. In June 2021, it was announced that Pinder would be heading the Yale School of Art as its new dean. Pinder will be the first woman of color and only second woman ever to hold this position in Yale's history. She is the first Black female dean in Yale University's history.

Scholarship

Pinder's research explores African American visual culture. In 2002, she edited a volume ''Race-ing Art History,'' which brought together essays on the importance of including race in art historical conversations. It was the first anthology to encourage a multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and

critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...

lens be placed onto art history. Her 2016 book
''Painting the Gospel''
highlights instances of strong visual culture in predominantly Black churches, with particular focus on representations of Black Jesus. The book further explores how public art can become an active part of a community while also highlighting the importance of understanding these artworks within their original context.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pinder, Kymberly American art curators American women curators Year of birth missing (living people) Yale University alumni Living people American art historians Women art historians 21st-century American women