Maggie Cao

Maggie Cao is the David G. Frey Associate Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She specializes in 18th-19th century American art within global contexts, focusing on intersections of art with technology, natural science, and economics. Her work includes two monographs: The End of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America (2018) and Painting US Empire (2025).

• B.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard University (2006, 2014)
• Postdoctoral work at Columbia University’s Society of Fellows

Her research examines globalization and artistic responses to modernity, including ecological temporality through Arctic photographs, geological time in etchings, and nonhuman time in art materials.

Selected publications and projects span trompe l’oeil still lifes, media theory, and cultural artifacts linked to colonial systems. She has received prestigious fellowships from the National Humanities Center, Terra Foundation, Smithsonian, and Getty Research Institute.

• Undergraduate courses: Introduction to American Art, Art and Money, Making Material Histories (Makerspace)
• Graduate courses: Art and Environments, Media and Materiality