Tyler C. Spencer

PhD Candidate

Area of interest: AArt and architecture of the United States; history of photography; Indigenous North American and Mesoamerican art and architecture; history of science.

Tyler C. Spencer is a scholar of American art and the history of photography. He holds a BA in English and Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in the History of Art and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts. His dissertation grapples with a range of historical issues related to the production, use, and circulation of images for geological surveys in the nineteenth century including the dialogue between art and science, the emergence of photography as an artistic and documentary medium, and the political project of westward expansion in the United States. Outside of the Institute, he has taught a variety of courses at NYU in the Department of Art History and the Core Curriculum and served as the principal researcher for an upcoming catalogue raisonné at the Boris Lurie Art Foundation. Tyler is currently the Graduate Curatorial Assistant at the Grey Art Museum.