Katherine Smith teaches courses in 19th- and 20th-century art on subjects ranging from public art, modern architecture, and self-portraiture to the history of photography and contemporary art and theory as well as the Art History Senior Seminar, a capstone course in which students have the opportunity to develop their own research projects as well as work on the current exhibition in The Dalton Gallery. She acted as faculty advisor to the Art History Theme House at Agnes Scott in 2005-06 and now serves as the faculty advisor for Collage, a colloquium established by Agnes Scott students in 2007 to promote scholarly exchange among students of the arts in metro-Atlanta colleges. This event takes place every spring and is open to the public; it includes both a juried exhibition and a series of student presentations on research and studio projects.

Prof. Smith’s approach to teaching draws directly on the interdisciplinary nature of her research, which focuses on thinking across media. Her scholarship addresses intersections in American art and architecture from the 1960s to the present. Her recent publications include essays in Relearning from Las Vegas (The University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and in the Archives of American Art Journal (summer 2009). She is currently working on a book project about Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s sculptural practice in relation to contemporary architecture and urban design, a project for which she received a grant from The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Selected Publications:

“A Symbolic Situation: Positioning Claes Oldenburg’s Sculpture and Robert Venturi’s Architecture at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College,” Archives of American Art Journal, Summer 2009.

“Mobilizing Visions: Representing the American Landscape,” in Instruction and Provocation, or Relearning from Las Vegas, ed. Michael Golec and Aron Vinegar (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), pp. 97-128.