Charles Kang, Ph.D.

Charles is completing his Ph.D. at the Columbia University. He holds a M.A. from the Williams College/Clark Art Institute Graduate Program and a B.A. from the University of Chicago, both in art history. A specialist in eighteenth-century French art, he is interested in visual traditions and media beyond the familiar hierarchies of the academy system. His dissertation explores Enlightenment notions of verisimilitude and pictorial truth through wax-based objects, such as polychrome sculpture, encaustic painting, and anatomical models. In addition to finishing the dissertation at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Charles will embark on his next project, which will reexamine the origins of Neoclassicism through the print market in early eighteenth-century Rome and its role in the interregional network of antiquarians. His other research interests include depictions of technology before the Industrial Revolution, history of collecting, and early-modern European engagement with East Asian art. He was an Interpretive Fellow of the Frick Collection (2016–2017) and a participant in the Center for Curatorial Leadership/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice (2017). In addition to co-curating Works as Progress/Works in Progress: Drawing in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France (2010) at the Williams College Museum of Art, Charles has held positions and internships at the Clark Art Institute, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Dia Art Foundation.