Rachel Hostetter Smith About the Curator

Rachel Hostetter Smith, PhD is the Gilkison Distinguished Professor of Art History at Taylor University. Prior to coming to Taylor University, she was on the graduate faculty of the School of Comparative Arts at Ohio University. She received her doctorate from Indiana University with specializations in Italian Renaissance, Medieval, and East Asian art. Smith is a founder and current president of the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA).  She publishes widely on the arts, with a focus on contemporary and world Christian art. She has served in editorial capacities for several publications including the journal Religion and the Arts, ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies and SEEN. She is the recipient of a number of awards including the Albert W. Fields Award for Best Article of the Year, the Forman Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award, and, most recently, the 2019 Boevé Art Education Award. Smith has been a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome on several occasions, a participant in NEH Summer Seminars in Paris and York, and a visiting professor and frequent seminar leader in the US and numerous countries around the world. Prior to Matter + Spirit, she served as Artistic Director of the two previous Nagel Institute international art projects in Indonesia (2008) and South Africa (2013) and Exhibition Curator of the traveling exhibitions that resulted: Charis: Boundary Crossings (2009-2012)) and Between the Shadow & the Light (2014-2018). She is currently working on a project in India.

For more information about the exhibit, contact the curator at rcsmith@taylor.edu.