David Cateforis
- Chair, History of Art Department
- Professor, American Art, Modern and Contemporary Art
- Acting Director of Graduate Studies, Fall 2024
Contact Info
Biography —
David Cateforis teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on modern and contemporary art. His research focuses on 20th-century American art and global contemporary art. He has published on artists ranging from Albert Bloch to Andrew Wyeth, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Elizabeth Murray and Wenda Gu. He is the author of the textbook Modern Art: A Global Survey from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2023). He is co-editor of Hybrid Practices: Art in Collaboration with Science and Technology in the Long 1960s (University of California Press, 2018), editor of Rethinking Andrew Wyeth (University of California Press, 2014), and the author of numerous other publications, including essays and reviews addressing art in the Kansas City region.
Education —
Teaching —
Recently Taught Lecture Courses
Contemporary Art
History of Photography
American Art and Culture since 1900
Modern Sculpture
Recently Taught Graduate Seminars
Inflection Points: American Sculpture ca. 1945-1990s
Art Here, Art Now
Past Present: The Historical Turn in Contemporary Art
Ph.D. Dissertations Directed
Maggie Vaughn, "Mapping Globalization in the Art of Guillermo Kuitca, Susan Stockwell, and Tiffany Chung.” In progress.
Mary Frances Ivey, "Picturing Age in the Work of Three Contemporary American Women Artists." In progress.
Sara Stepp, “Time, Place, and Identity in the Art of Hung Liu.” Defended December 2023.
Laura Minton, “‘I’ve been all over this world four times’: Travel, Place, and Memory in the Art of Joseph E. Yoakum.” Defended September 2021.
Samantha Lyons, "Synaesthetic Dress: Episodes of Sensational Objects in Performance Art, 1955-1975." Defended December 2019.
Eunyoung Park, "Situating Contemporary Korean Art in the Age of Globalization." Defended April 2018.
Mindy A. Besaw, “Re-Framing the American West: Contemporary Artists Engage History.” (Co-directed with Charles Eldredge) Defended November 2015.
Brittany Lockard, “Size Matters: Imagery of the Fat Female Body in the Art of Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Joel-Peter Witkin, Laurie Toby Edison, Leonard Nimoy, and Laura Aguilar.” Defended April 2012
Emily Stamey, "Pop, Place, and Personal Identity in the Art of Roger Shimomura." Defended April 2009.
Jill Rachelle Chancey, "Elaine de Kooning: Negotiating the Masculinity of Abstract Expressionism." Defended April 2006.
Mark White, "From Dynamism to Objectivity: The Late Career of George Bellows." Defended April 1999.
Leesa Fanning, "Abstract Expressionism and the Body: Philosophical and Cultural Interpretations." Defended March 1998.
Susan Baker, "George Tooker and the Modern Tradition." (Begun under Timothy Mitchell). Defended December 1994.
Kathryn Boyer, "Political Promotion and Institutional Patronage: How New York Displaced Paris as the Center of Contemporary Art, c. 1955-1968." (Begun under Timothy Mitchell). Defended September 1994.
Selected Publications —
Books
Modern Art: A Global Survey from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).
Co-editor, with Steven Duval and Shepherd Steiner, Hybrid Practices: Art in Collaboration with Science and Technology in the Long 1960s (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018).
Albert Bloch – Themes and Variations: Paintings and Watercolors from the Albert Bloch Foundation (Lawrence, KS: Lawrence Arts Center, 2015).
Editor and contributing author, Rethinking Andrew Wyeth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).
Editor and contributing author, Oppenheimer Collection (Overland Park, Kansas: Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, 2012).
Collaborating author, Marilyn Stokstad in collaboration with David Cateforis et al., Art History, revised 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2005 [appeared in 2004]).
Collaborating author, Marilyn Stokstad in collaboration with David Cateforis et al., Art History, 2nd ed. (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with Prentice Hall, 2002 [appeared in 2001]).
Editor and contributing author, Decade of Transformation: American Art of the 1960s (Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 1999).
Co-editor, with Frank Baron and Helmut Arntzen, and contributing author, Albert Bloch: Artistic and Literary Perspectives (Munich: Prestel-Verlag in association with Max Kade Center for German-American Studies, University of Kansas, 1997).
Willem de Kooning, Rizzoli Art Series (New York: Rizzoli International, 1994).
Essays and Articles
“Albert Bloch: Art as an Elevated Calling,” in Charles C. Eldredge, ed., The Unforgettables: Expanding the History of American Art (Oakland: University of California Press, 2022), 252-57.
“Here Comes the Sun,” in Michael Krueger: (Just Like) Starting Over (Kansas City, MO: Haw Contemporary, 2021).
“Connections and Disruptions: Warren Rosser’s and James Woodfill’s Early Years in Kansas City,” in Rosser/Woodfill - Transmissions/Signals (Kansas City, MO: Union Office, 2015), 29-46.
“Andrew Wyeth in Critical Perspective,” in David Cateforis, ed., Rethinking Andrew Wyeth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 2-59, 200-10 (notes).
“Surface and Depth: Notes on Painting and Sculpture in the Anderson Collection,” in A Family Affair: Modern and Contemporary American Art from the Anderson Collection at Stanford University (Stanford, CA: Anderson Collection at Stanford University, 2014), 44-51.
“Cultural Translation and Creative Misunderstanding in the Art of Wenda Gu,” in Cynthia Mills, Lee Glazer, and Amelia A. Goerlitz, eds., East-West Interchanges in American Art: A Long and Tumultuous Relationship (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2012), 204-13.
“Calligraphy, Poetry, and Paradoxical Power in Wenda Gu’s Neon Calligraphy Series,” Word & Image 26, no. 1 (January-March 2010): 1-20.
“Wenda Gu’s Metamorphoses,” The University of Kansas Spencer Museum of Art Register, 7, no. 10 (July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008): 10-25.
“‘The Work Is Not Finished’: Wenda Gu’s united nations Series and the Dartmouth Monuments,” in Wenda Gu at Dartmouth: The Art of Installation (Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College in association with University Press of New England, 2008), 63-85.
“Translation as Transformation: Wenda Gu's Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry,” in Translating Visuality –Wenda Gu: Forest of Stone Steles, Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry, exhibition catalogue (Shenzhen, China: OCT-Contemporary Art Terminal of He Xiangning Museum, 2005), 311-21.
“Rosser’s Renaissance: Six Years of Painting,” in Warren Rosser: To Be Continued… Selected Paintings from 1998-2004 (Brookings, SD: South Dakota Art Museum, 2004), 13-21.
“Gu Wenda’s United Nations: A Consideration of Two Monuments,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 2, no. 4 (December 2003): 18-24.
“The Art of Robert Sudlow,” in Spiritual Journeys: The Art of Robert Sudlow (Kansas City, MO: ExhibitsUSA, 2002), 14-66.
“Robert Motherwell's Figure Before Blackness,” Register of the Spencer Museum of Art 7, no. 3 (2001): 3-11.
“Elizabeth Murray: A New Way of Painting,” in Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection, exhibition catalogue (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in association with University of California Press, 2000), 196-97.
“‘All the Great Modern Things’: American Pop in the Spencer Museum,” in David Cateforis, ed., Decade of Transformation: American Art of the 1960s (Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 1999), 1-15.
“Albert Bloch’s Visionary Landscapes,” in Frank Baron, David Cateforis, and Helmut Arntzen, eds., Albert Bloch: Artistic and Literary Perspectives (Munich: Prestel-Verlag in association with Max Kade Center for German-American Studies, University of Kansas, 1997), 121-28.
“Painter's Progress: The Later Work of Albert Bloch,” in Henry Adams, Margaret C. Conrads, and Annegret Hoberg, eds., Albert Bloch: The American Blue Rider (Munich: Prestel-Verlag in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, and Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, 1997), 79-85.
“‘That Our Soil Will Produce the Artist’: American Landscape Painting and National Identity, ca. 1890-1950,” in Novelene Ross, Toward an American Identity: Selections from the Wichita Art Museum Collection of American Art(Wichita, KS: Wichita Art Museum, 1997), 37-59.
Exhibitions —
Selected Curatorial Activities
2014-15—Co-curator (with Ben Ahlvers), Albert Bloch – Themes and Variations: Paintings and Watercolors from the Albert Bloch Foundation, Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, KS.
2014-15—Co-curator (with Raechell Smith), Making Histories, H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO.
2004—Co-curator (with Saralyn Reece Hardy), Commodities, Celebrities, Death and Disaster: Warhol and Now. Andy Warhol, Michael Bevilacqua, Yasumasa Morimura, Lucinda Devlin, Salina Art Center, Salina, KS.
1999—Co-curator and editor of catalogue essays for the exhibition Decade of Transformation: American Art of the 1960s, Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas.
1994-95—Co-curator (with Bruce Hartman), John Duff, Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, KS.
Awards & Honors —
2018—Community Engaged Scholarship Award, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Kansas
2004—William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, University of Kansas
2000—Archie and Nancy Dykes Award for Outstanding Classroom Teaching, University of Kansas