KNOXVILLE — UT Knoxville alumnus Robert Hobbs has curated dozens of exhibitions around the globe. This week, he’s visiting UT Knoxville for a lecture at the School of Art.
A renowned and accomplished art historian, Hobbs will present “The Contemporary Sublime and the Art of Wade Guyton, Meredyth Sparks, and Kelley Walker,” a look at the work of three prominent UT Knoxville alumni, two of whom received their degrees in printmaking.
The free lecture will begin at 7 p.m., Thursday Oct. 28, in Art and Architecture Building room 109.
Since 1991, Hobbs has held the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair of American Art in the highly respected School of Arts at the Virginia Commonwealth University. Since 2004, he has served as a visiting professor at Yale University.
Hobbs, who received his bachelor’s degree in art history from UT in 1969, specializes in both late modern and post-modern art. His work joins social history with literary criticism and aesthetics and also relies on feminist and postcolonial theory. He has published widely and has curated dozens of exhibitions, many of which have been shown at important institutions in the U.S. and abroad.
Hobbs’ publications include monographs on Alice Aycock, who designed the sculpture on the Johnson-Ward Pedestrain Mall at UT Knoxville, as well as on Milton Avery, Edward Hopper, Lee Krasner, Mark Lombardi, Robert Smithson and Kara Walker. In addition, he has written on many mainstream modern and post-modern artists. His published research also includes in-depth studies of regional, self-taught, African-American and American Indian artists, as well as investigations of contemporary craft media.
For four years, Hobbs served on the College Art Association Millard Meiss Committee, which awards money for publications. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Grove Encyclopedia of American Art (Oxford University Press). He also has held positions at Cornell University, University of Iowa, Florida State University and Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, and is known for a number of books, in-depth essays and exhibitions.
His visit is sponsored by the Visiting Artists Scholars and Designers Committee in the School of Art.