Rate My Professor Anthony White

Associate Professor Anthony White serves as Head of the Art History and Art Curatorship Program in the School of Culture and Communication within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. He earned his PhD and Masters (Coursework) from Harvard University, a Masters (Research) from the University of Melbourne, and a Bachelors Degree with Honours. Earlier in his career, White was Curator of International Painting and Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia, where he curated significant exhibitions including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection (2001), Sol LeWitt: Drawings, Prints and Books, 1968-1988 (2002, co-curated with Steven Tonkin), and Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles (2002). He also co-curated The Art of Making Sense at the Dax Centre in Melbourne (2008, with Eugen Koh).

White's research focuses on the history of modern and contemporary art, particularly Italian modernism in the age of fascism, avant-garde movements, surrealism, and the intersections of art with politics, society, and mental health. He is the author of Italian Modern Art in the Age of Fascism (Routledge, 2020; paperback 2021) and Lucio Fontana: Between Utopia and Kitsch (MIT Press, 2011; paperback 2014). He co-authored Art as Enterprise: Social and Economic Engagement in Contemporary Art (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2016; paperback 2024) with Grace McQuilten and Variations: A More Diverse Picture of Contemporary Art (Monash University Publishing, 2023; e-book 2024) with Tristen Harwood and Grace McQuilten. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in journals such as October, Grey Room, Art Bulletin, Art History, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, and Third Text, addressing topics like Lucio Fontana's spatial concepts, futurism and war, and surrealism in Italy. White has secured research grants from the Australian Research Council (2007, 2012, 2018, 2024) and the Ian Potter Foundation (2014), and served as a collaborator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada project (2012-2017). He has been a Visiting Scholar at New York University's Department of Italian Studies (2013, 2025), the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, D.C. (2006), and the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University (2005). From 2014 to 2018, he was President of the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand.