Renée Ater

As a scholar, I tend to pick a project and stick to it for a long time. I have been thinking, researching, and writing about public monuments and slave past since 2010. Over time as a scholar and writer, I have discovered that I enjoy writing for a public audience. My writing tends towards the essay format and exhibition catalog essays although I have written two monographs: Keith Morrison, volume 5 of The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art (Pomegranate Books, 2005); Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller (University of California Press, 2011; 2021 paperback).

At heart, I am an educator and discovered the energy of the classroom in 1996 when I served as a teaching assistant for Professor Josephine Wither's brilliant "Introduction to Art" survey course. I have loved my long career as a college professor, teaching art history to several generations through the practice of seeing, analysis, and interpretation. With content ranging from U.S. colonial portraits to Mende sowëi helmet masks, my approach was to place the object at the center of our discussions and then to weave history, analysis, and interpretations together. For me, scholarship, writing, and teaching are inextricably linked.

I am an Associate Professor Emerita in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland where I taught from 2000-2017. From 2018-2019, I held several fellowships including an NEH/Mellon Digital Publication Fellowship, a residential fellowship at the Getty Research Institute, and a residential fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In July 2025, I wrapped up my tenure as a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University (2020-2025).