About
Shawon Kinew is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, specializing in early modern Southern European art with a focus on seventeenth-century Rome. She holds affiliations with the Harvard University Native American Program and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, where she advocates for the care of Indigenous ancestral remains. Her research explores colonialism, emotion, and cross-cultural intersections in art, including studies of sculptor Melchiorre Cafà and sixteenth-century erotic painting.
- Education: Hon. B.A. (University of Toronto), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard University)
Research interests include Baroque sculpture, global art legacies, Indigenous art history, and the intersection of art with colonial violence. Her current projects include a monograph on Cafà and a cross-cultural study of eroticism in North American art.
Teaching spans Renaissance/Baroque artists like Bernini and Caravaggio, Indigenous American portraiture, and Warburgian methodologies. She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute, Getty Research Institute, and Bibliotheca Hertziana.
- Awards: Mellon Foundation, Lemmermann Foundation, David Rockefeller Center grants
