Esther T. Thyssen studied art history at Lake Forest College and Yale University, receiving her PhD from Yale in 1999. In 2006 she was Fulbright Guest Professor of American Studies at Debrecen University in Debrecen, Hungary, in the Institute of British and North American Studies.

Academic research/areas of interest

Her research interests are in the construction of modernism in Europe and the Americas, and the re-vision of the history of art in east and central Europe prior to 1989. She is currently researching the movement of art and artists across the former Iron Curtain, as well as abstract art and the art market of the 1960s and 70s. At RISD she teaches History of Art and Visual Culture 1 and 2, and seminars on Romanticism and Abstract Expressionism.

Wintersession 2019 Courses

• HAVC-W181-01 American Prints: Artists and Master Printers

Spring 2019 Courses

• HAVC-H159-01 Abstract Expressionism In Art and Global Politics
• HAVC-H102-06 Thad II: Premodern Worlds
• HAVC-H102-23 Thad II: Premodern Worlds