Erika Esau

Erika Esau was born and raised in California. She studied in Vienna and Germany, having a Fulbright Scholarship to Darmstadt, Germany, in 1973. She received a PhD in Art History from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, in 1985. She lectured in modern art history and was Curator of the Art Collection at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, where she wrote a catalogue of the LaVera Pohl Collection of German Expressionist Art. In 1990 she was appointed Lecturer in Art History at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, where she taught modern art history, Australian art, and the history of photography. In 1998 she was co-author of the Blue Guide Australia (London: A & C Black) , a cultural tour guide to the entire country. She now resides in Pasadena, California, where she has been a Fellow at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. She has just completed a book, Images of the Pacific Rim: Australia and California, 1850-1935 (Power Publications, Sydney, forthcoming 2010) on the aesthetic connections between Australia and the American West. She also works presently as librarian at the Rifkind Center of German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.