CAA News Today
Eddie Chambers Named CAA114 Distinguished Scholar
posted Nov 13, 2025
Photograph by Hakeem Adewumi
The Distinguished Scholar Session at the 114th CAA Annual Conference will recognize the career of Eddie Chambers, including his professional experience as an artist and curator, and celebrate his ongoing legacy of critical engagement, mentorship, and advocacy for Black British and African diaspora artists within the global field of art history.
Chambers is Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously, he held the David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professorship in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a Visiting Professor at Emory University, Atlanta. In addition to his notable academic career, he has been professionally involved in the visual arts for four decades as an artist, art critic, and curator. He earned his PhD at Goldsmiths College University of London.
His broad areas of scholarship are the art and art history of the African diaspora. Chambers has written several books, including Run Through the Jungle: Selected Writings by Eddie Chambers (Institute of International Visual Arts, 1999); Things Done Change: The Cultural Politics of Recent Black Artists in Britain (Rodopi Editions, 2012); Black Artists in British Art: A History Since the 1950s (I. B. Tauris, 2014); Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain (I. B. Tauris, 2017); World is Africa: Writings on Diaspora Art (Bloomsbury, 2021). His other writing has been published widely in Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Panorama, and elsewhere.
Chambers has worked with many artists over the course of several decades, including Eugene Palmer, Cybil Charlier, Frank Bowling, Denzil Forrester, Barbara Walker, and Alberta Whittle.
Following two terms as a field editor for caa.reviews, he was Editor-in-Chief of CAA’s Art Journal until July 2024. Chambers is the editor of the just-published Routledge Companion to African Diaspora Art History.
Chambers’s career and his impact on the field will be celebrated with presentations and a dialogue with scholars and colleagues:
Session Panelists:
Cherise Smith, University of Texas at Austin
John Tyson, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Katherine Gregory, Wake Forest University
Richard Hylton, Tyler School, Temple University and Reviews Editor, Art Journal
Register now for the CAA 114th Annual Conference, February 18–21, 2026 in Chicago!
The CAA114 Distinguished Scholar Session will be held on Thursday, February 19, 4:30–6:30 p.m. CT at the Hilton Chicago. This event will also be livestreamed via YouTube.