IFAO

(Ph.D. 1981 Columbia, Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University) is an historian of African art and architecture in both the History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies Departments. She also is a member of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Her most recent book projects are Picasso’s Demoiselles: The True Origins of a Modern Art Masterpiece (Duke University Press 2019) and forthcoming 1325: How Medieval Africa Made the World Modern (Yale University Press 2021). Other recent works include: The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art (co-edited with David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates, Jr (2017 Harvard University Press). A 2015 book, Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power and Identity c.1300 (Cambridge University Press) won the 2016 Prose Prize in Art History and Criticism. Her first book The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression (Cambridge University press; paperback, Chicago University Press, 1987) won the Arnold Rubin Prize. Her second book, African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power (1995) received the Charles Rufus Morey Prize. Other books include: African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form (1998 Choice Book Award), Butabu: Adobe Architecture in West Africa (2004 NY Times, Holiday Selection), and Art of the Senses: Masterpieces from the William and Bertha Teel Collection (Editor 2004).
Blier serves on the Board of the National Committee for the History of Art and was President of CAA, the professional association of art historians, artists, and designers from 2016-2018) where she previously served as Vice President for Publications from 2013-15 and Vice President for the Annual Conference (2015-2016); in 2011 two of her articles were selected for the Centennial Anthology of the Art Bulletin, comprising the 33 top articles over the journal’s 100 year history; she was one of only three art historians (along with Meyer Shapiro and Leo Steinberg) to have two articles included. In 2014 she published Art Matters focusing on the importance of African art and the museum. She is a past member of the Collège de France International Scientific and Strategic Committee (COSS) and was formerly on the Board of the Society of Architectural Historians. Fellowships include: CASVA (Paul Mellon Senior Fellow, the National Gallery of Art), John Simon Guggenheim, the Radcliffe Institute, NEH, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Fulbright Senior Research, Social Science Research Council, ACLS, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and the Getty Center for the Study of Art. She was Co-Chair of an Electronic Geo-Spatial Database: Africamap, a site that expanded into Worldmap, where she serves as chair of the Faculty Steering Committee. A profile on Blier’s contributions to the field has appeared in the spring 2013 Harvard Graduate School publication, Colloquy essay, “Facing African Art”.