Dr. Steven Zucker

About Dr. Steven Zucker

Steven is co-founder and executive director of Smarthistory. Previously, Steven was dean of art and history at Khan Academy. He was also chair of history of art and design at Pratt Institute where he strengthened enrollment and lead the renewal of curriculum across the Institute. Before that, he was dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY and chair of their art history department. He has taught at The School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, and at The Museum of Modern Art. Dr. Zucker is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has co-authored, with Dr. Beth Harris, numerous articles on the future of education and the future of museums, topics he regularly addresses at conferences around the world. Dr. Zucker received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Daniele da Volterra, Michelangelo, c. 1544, oil on panel (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Michelangelo was known as il divino, (in English, “the divine one”) and it is easy for us to see why.

Michelangelo

John Sloan, Movies, 1913, oil on canvas, 50.3 x 61 cm (Toledo Museum of Art)
When movies were new and lights transformed the darkened city streets.

John Sloan, Movies

Marisol Escobar, The Party, 1965-66, fifteen freestanding, life-size figures and three wall panels, with painted and carved wood, mirrors, plastic, television set, clothes, shoes, glasses, and other accessories, variable dimensions (Toledo Museum of Art, © artist’s estate)
At this party, everyone has the same face and seems profoundly alone.

Marisol, The Party

Wayne Thiebaud, Ponds and Streams, 2001, acrylic on canvas, 182.9 x 152.4 cm (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, ©Wayne Thiebaud)
Can the commonplace working farmland of California's Sacramento River Valley be a place of of breathtaking beauty?

Thiebaud, Ponds and Streams