Kit Brooks, Ph.D. 2017

Kit Brooks, Ph.D. 2017

Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art
Kit Brooks, Ph.D. 2017

Kit Brooks holds a PhD in Japanese art history from Harvard University (2017), studying under professors Yukio Lippit and Melissa McCormick. Specializing in prints and paintings of the Edo and Meiji periods, their primary research interests revolve around the reevaluation of “eccentric” artists of the eighteenth century, as well as the relationship between illustrated books and paintings, and special prints that emulate the visual qualities of other media, such as surimono and takuhanga.

Brooks has held positions at the British Museum, Harvard Art Museums, and the Children’s Museum in Boston. They curated the exhibition Uncanny Japan: The Art of Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) at the Worcester Art Museum (2015) and cocurated Living Proof: Drawing in 19th-Century Japan at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (2017–18). Brooks is also a graduate of the CCL/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice at the Center for Curatorial Leadership (2016).

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