William Blake: Brothers' Bones Beside - Catalog - Page 35
AUTHOR BIOGR APHIES
TK SMITH
ABBI SMITHMYER
TK Smith is a curator, writer, and cultural historian.
Abbi Smithmyer is a current doctoral candidate studying
He currently serves as Curator, Arts of Africa and the
history at West Virginia University. Her dissertation
African Diaspora, Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory
combines cultural, memory, and material culture studies to
University. Previously, Smith served as Assistant Curator:
explore the ways United States and Confederate soldiers used
Art of the African Diaspora at the Barnes Foundation.
objects associated with George Washington to argue their
Recent curatorial projects include the 2025 Mississippi
respective side best represented the American Revolution’s
Invitational: Call Home at the Mississippi Museum of Art,
principal values. While teaching classes at WVU, Abbi’s
Hand to Mouth at Stove Works, and the forthcoming: 2026
knowledge on the Civil War era has been bolstered by
Oregon Artist’s Biennial at the Oregon Contemporary.
multiple summers spent working at various historical sites
Smith’s writing has been published in exhibition catalogues,
and battlefields including the Seminary Ridge Museum and
academic journals, and periodicals, including Art Papers
Education Center, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National
where he is a contributing editor. He is a past recipient of
Military Park, Petersburg National Battlefield, Manassas
an Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant and most recently was
National Battlefield Park, and Booker T. Washington
awarded the Leo and Dorothea Rabkin Prize in art writing.
National Monument. n
He has been a visiting lecturer at numerous academic
and cultural institutions, including Cornell University.
Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American
Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where
he is completing his dissertation, entitled “Granite, Power,
and Piss: The Transformation of a Confederate Symbol. n
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