Alexandria Smith appointed Assistant Professor in Painting/Printmaking and Director of Undergraduate Studies

The Yale School of Art is pleased to share the appointment of Alexandria Smith as Assistant Professor in Painting/Printmaking and Director of Undergraduate Studies beginning in the 2023-24 academic year.

Alexandria Smith is an artist and educator whose artistic practice is characterized by a mixed-media approach encompassing drawing, painting, and installation. Her current body of work delves into a profound exploration of selfhood, focusing on the complexities and nuances of the Black femme body, inviting viewers to engage with the confidences, contradictions, and uncertainties of personal identity.

With a commitment to both her studio practice and teaching, Alexandria approaches her work in both areas as a unified whole. Her classes embrace inclusivity and inquisitiveness, encouraging dialogue about marginalized perspectives and personal identities informed by art history, materials, and processes.

Smith joins the Yale School of Art from the Royal College of Art in London, where she served as Head of Painting. Smith has previously taught at Wellesley College and the University of Iowa. She has also served as a visiting critic at Helsinki’s University of the Arts, Boston University, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, among others. She earned her BFA in illustration from Syracuse University, New York, an MA in art education from New York University, and an MFA from Parsons School of Design, New School, New York. From 2017 through 2018 she served as co-organizer of the collective Black Women Artists for Black Lives.

Smith is the recipient of numerous awards including the Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship, a NXTHVN Studio Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship, and the Virginia A. Myers Fellowship at the University of Iowa. Smith’s recent exhibitions include Pretend Gravitas and Dream Aborted Givens, Gagosian, Park and 75, New York, Memoirs of a Ghost Girlhood: a Black Girl’s Window, Currier Museum of Art, New Hampshire, Monuments to an Effigy, Queens Museum, New York, and a site-specific commission for the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.

The School of Art would like to note the thoughtful and dedicated work of the selection committee: Meleko Mokgosi, Director of Graduate Studies in Painting/Printmaking; Kate Krier, Associate Dean for the Arts at Yale College; Byron Kim, Senior Critic in Painting/Printmaking; and Elizabeth Tubergen, Senior Critic in Sculpture.