Bolaji Campbell is Professor of African and African Diaspora Art in the Department of Theory and History of Art and Design at RISD. Campbell holds a PhD in art history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and MFA and BA degrees in fine arts from the Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly University of Ife) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He has previously taught at Obafemi Awolowo University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Sylvia and Pamela Coleman Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Richard A. Horovitz Professional Development Fund Fellowship, Institute of International Education; and a Postdoctoral Fellowship, Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. Campbell is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in America, Nigerian Artists: A Who’s Who and Bibliography (Smithsonian Institution), L’Art Africain Contemporain, Guidebook to Contemporary African Art (Paris). He has published numerous essays in learned journals and as chapters in books. His most recent work is a book entitled Painting for the Gods: Art and Aesthetics of Yoruba Religious Murals (Africa World Press, 2008).

Academic research/areas of interest

• African Art
• Contemporary African Art
• African American Art
• African Diaspora Art

Fall 2018 Courses

• HAVC-H583-01 African American Art
• HAVC-H476-01 Contemporary African Art: The Nigerian Experience
• HAVC-H705-01 Yoruba Art & Aesthetics

Spring 2019 Courses

• HAVC-H411-01 Art and History Of Early West African Kingdoms
• HAVC-H445-01 Sem: Critical Discourse On The Black Female Body