Tyler C. Spencer

PhD Candidate

Area of interest: Art and architecture of the United States; nineteenth-century photography; pre-Columbian and Mesoamerican archaeology; history of science; political theory; literature.

Tyler C. Spencer is a scholar of the art and architecture of the United States. 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 current research grapples with a range of historical issues related to the production, use, and circulation of images for American geological surveys in the nineteenth-century including the dialogue between art and natural science, the emergence of photography as an artistic and documentary medium, and the political project of westward expansion in the United States. In addition to his academic engagements and research interests, Tyler also works for the Boris Lurie Art Foundation as the principal researcher for an upcoming Catalogue Raisonné of the artist’s work.