Justin Brown

Justin M. Brown is a Ph.D. Candidate in the History of Art specializing in the art of the Caribbean and the Guianas. His dissertation examines Afro-Surinamese calabash art from the period of slavery and emancipation. It explores how free and enslaved artists reworked African and Indigenous traditions to create a unique art form.
 
In support of his research, he has earned the Samuel H. Kress Predoctoral Fellowship at CASVA, the MacMillan International Dissertation Research Fellowship, and the RITM Research and Conference Travel Award. He previously worked as a curatorial fellow in American Art at the Worcester Art Museum with funding from the Henry Luce Foundation. He has also worked at the Yale Center for British Art, the RISD Museum, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute.
 
Justin grew up in a multigenerational Black and Dominican-American home in Providence, R.I. A first-generation college student, he received a B.A. from the University of Rhode Island and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Delaware.