Steven Zucker, PhD

Education

BA, Bard College
MA, Hunter College, City University of New York
MPhil, Graduate Center, City University of New York
PhD, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Biography

Dr. Steven Zucker is a former associate professor and chair of the History of Art department; he also served as dean of FIT’s School of Graduate Studies.

Dr. Zucker is currently Executive Director at Smarthistory, which he founded with Beth Harris. Together, they have received grants from the National Endowment of Humanities, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Alice L. Walton Foundation, the Macaulay Family Foundation, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Notably, a recent Kress Foundation grant is aiding early-career art historians impacted by COVID-19. They were also the guests of honor and spoke at Christie's fall 2019 Modern and Contemporary Sale. On May 3, 2020, the Washington Post published an interview with Harris and Zucker: How two professors transformed the teaching of art history. In 2023, Smarthistory content was viewed 59 million times (by learners in every nation on Earth except North Korea).

From 2010–2011, Dr. Zucker was chair of the Department of Art and Design History at Pratt Institute, then Dean of Art and History at Khan Academy (where he is now Emeritus).

Courses

• HA 111 History of Western Art and Civilization: Ancient to Renaissance
• HA 112 History of Western Art and Civilization: Renaissance to the Modern Era
• HA 213 Rome: A Cultural History in Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture
• HA 214 Art in New York
• HA 231 Modern Art
• HA 331 Contemporary Art and Culture: 1945 to the Present
• HA 332 Modern Architecture
• HA 394 History of New York Architecture (Honors)