Associate Professor
Matthew C. Hunter researches visual art and architecture of the long eighteenth century (ca. 1660-1860), with particular emphasis on their interactions with science and technology. A recovering artist, Hunter is currently working on entanglements of Anglo-American art with insurance. He is interested in liberalism, artists鈥� self-help organizations, genealogies of research-creation, histories of redlining, problems of color, and matters related to art-historical knowledge production (i.e. methods).
His publications include听Painting with Fire: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Photography and the Temporally Evolving Chemical Object听(University of Chicago Press, 2020) and听Wicked Intelligence: Visual Art and the Science of Experiment in Restoration London听(University of Chicago Press, 2013). An editor of听Grey Room, he has co-edited听The Clever Object听(Wiley, 2013) and听Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science听(Springer, 2010), along with special issues on liquid intelligence, the aerial image, and art鈥檚 actuarial imagination. His work has been supported by the Getty Research Institute, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec鈥揝oci茅t茅 et Culture, among others. For more information, please see:听
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Some Recent Publications
鈥淭he Sun is God: Turner, Angerstein and Insurance,鈥澨�Oxford Art Journal听Vol. 47, Iss. 1 (June 2024): 39-65
鈥淎rt and the Actuarial Imagination: Propositions,鈥澨�Oxford Art Journal听Vol. 47, Iss. 1 (June 2024): 1-12; co-authored with Avigail Moss
鈥淣icholas Barbon鈥檚听De febre ardente: Medico-Philosophical Grounds of Fire Insurance?鈥澨�Grey Room听95 (Spring 2024): 74-89; co-authored with Mackenzie Zalin
鈥�鈥� in 鈥淏eyond Copyright: How does Law Impact Art?鈥� colloquium, ed. Wendy Katz and Lauren van Haaften-Schick,听Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art听9, no. 1 (Spring 2023)
鈥淓ditors鈥� Introduction: The Aerial Image鈥�,听Grey Room听83 (Spring 2021): 6-23; with Emily Doucet and Nicholas Robbins
鈥淢odeling: A Secret History of Following,鈥� in听, ed. Zeynep 脟elik Alexander and John May (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020), 45-70
Course Offerings and Supervision
Hunter鈥檚 teaching aims to integrate analysis of visual artifacts with broader historical, theoretical and interpretive problems. Hunter welcomes students at the M.A. and Ph.D. level who are interested in projects relating to art and science, expanded histories of photography, landscape broadly conceived, and the arts of the Atlantic world. Some recent seminars offered include 鈥淩isk鈥� (with Prof. Alex Blue V, Winter 2024), 鈥淒rawing for Art Historians鈥� (Winter 2023), 鈥淎rt Under Liberalism鈥� (Fall 2022), and 鈥淩isk, Value, Accident: Art and the Actuarial Imagination鈥� (Fall 2021).
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