Erin L. McCutcheon is an art historian of modern and contemporary art whose research and writing focus on histories of Latin American art, feminist artistic practices, and their connections with activist histories, in particular those in Mexico. She earned a PhD in Art History and Latin American Studies, and a certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies, from Tulane University and is currently Assistant Professor of Arts of the Americas in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Rhode Island. Prior to joining URI in 2022, she directed the Art History program at Lycoming College (2019-2022) where she received the 2021 Junior Faculty Teaching Award. She has also held previous teaching positions in Art History and Latin American Studies at Millsaps College, Tufts University, and Tulane University, and positions in curatorial departments at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Henry Moore Institute.

Dr. McCutcheon teaches a range of courses that offer an interdisciplinary and socially engaged investigation of art’s histories through the lenses of gender, sexualities, race, ethnicity, class, colonialism, and histories of uneven development. She often has her students collaborate with artists and activist collectives in ways that demonstrate the ability of art to make a meaningful impact on the world. Since 2020, she has been a mentor for AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions), an international archive that supports training a new generation of scholars attentive to issues of gender and the position of artists who are women in history.

Her research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals, edited collections, and exhibition catalogues, including the catalogue for Si tiene dudas… pregunte: una exposición retrocolectiva de Mónica Mayer (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, 2016), for which she served as a curatorial research assistant. Her current book project examines the intersections between art, the women’s movement, and motherhood in post–1968 Mexico City and has been supported by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. This publication will offer new perspectives for the study of artists both within and beyond the borders of Latin America by establishing the artistic and activist potentialities of the role of artist/mother and its critical significance to art’s histories.