Amy M. Mooney is an Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Columbia College, Chicago. Her publications include a monograph on Chicago painter Archibald J. Motley, Jr., volume IV of the David C. Driskell series on African American Art (2002) as well as contributions to anthologies and catalogs including Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist (2014), Black Is Black Ain’t (2013), and Romare Bearden in the Modernist Tradition (2009). She is a recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Black Metropolis Research Consortium Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship, the Joyce Foundation, the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Currently, she is at work on her second book, Portraits of Noteworthy Character, a project that investigates the social function of portraiture. Mooney has a broad approach to curatorial practice, seeking opportunities to support emerging artists and diversity through educational programming and community activism. She was the Critical Encounters Fellow for 2011-2012, supporting the development of civic engagement projects such as Potluck: Chicago connecting students with local and global partners including the UK arts activists, motiroti, who share a vision for social change. Recently, with Neysa Page-Lieberman, she curated the exhibition RISK: Empathy, Art, and Social Practice that considered the reciprocal role of risk and empathy in work of Chicago’s burgeoning social practice movement.

2014 - 2015,