Justin M. Brown is an art historian based in Boston, Massachusetts.
About
I am an assistant professor of art history and African & African diaspora studies at Boston College. Currently writing about Suriname in the 19th century.
Research Interests
Afro-Caribbean art and spirituality.
Black material culture.
Black artists of the 19th century.
Publications
“‘They call these foolish things obias’: Protestant Iconoclasm and Colonial Policing in Post-Emancipation Suriname” (in progress).
“Afro-Surinamese Flag Shrines: Materializing Group Identity in the Eighteenth Century.” In The Routledge Companion to Race in Early Modern Artistic, Material, and Visual Production, edited by Nicholas R. Jones, Christina H. Lee, and Dominique Polanco. New York: Routledge, 2025 (forthcoming).
“Slavery at Home and Overseas: Lessons from New England and the Netherlands.” In Art Museums and the Legacies of the Dutch Slave Trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures, edited by Sarah Mallory, Joanna S. Seidenstein, Rachel Burke, and Kéla Jackson. Boston: Brill, 2025.
“Suriname Maroon Art.” In Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance, edited by Victoria Avery. Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, 2023.
“Marking Transatlantic Time: Accounting for Slavery in Britain and the Caribbean.” In Marking Time: Objects, People, and Their Lives, 1500–1800, edited by Edward Town and Angela McShane. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020.
Teaching
Art of the African Diaspora
Introduction to Caribbean Art
Intro to African Arts and Visual Culture
Exhibitions
(with Kanitra Fletcher), Spirit and Strength: Modern Art from Haiti, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2024 – March 9, 2025
(with Jon Seydl), Highest Heaven: Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Art from the Collection of Roberta and Richard Huber, Worcester Art Museum, March 11 – July 19, 2017
(with Lauren Szumita), Picket Fence to Picket Line: Visions of American Citizenship, Worcester Art Museum, October 15, 2016 – February 5, 2017
Email me at justin.m.brown [at] bc.edu
Contact