Home › Academics › College of Liberal Arts › Faculty › Paul Tucker

Faculty & Staff

Areas of Expertise

19th and 20th century art

Degrees

PhD Yale University

Additional Information

Paul Hayes Tucker, who has taught art history at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 1978, is currently The Paul Hayes Tucker Distinguished Professor of Art, a Chair established in his name by two Boston patrons of the arts, Barbara Lee and Ellen Poss. Hailed by Time Magazine as one of America’s foremost authorities on Claude Monet and Impressionism, Professor Tucker earned his B.A. from Williams College and his Ph.D from Yale University.

Professor Tucker has served on the faculties of the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), Williams College, and the University of California Santa Barbara, and has been honored with many awards and grants, including the Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship (UMass Boston); the Yale Press Governor’s Award for the best book published by an author under 40; and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies as well as from the Florence Gould Arts Foundation. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Professor Tucker served as the President and Chairman of the Board of the Terra Foundation for the Arts and is the founder and Director of Arts on the Point, a public sculpture park in Boston.

In addition to his many publications which includes 11 books, Professor Tucker has served as guest curator for more than half a dozen major exhibitions, including, Claude Monet. Late Work (Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2010); Double Take. From Monet to Lichtenstein. Selections from the Paul G. Allen Collection (Experience Music Project, Seattle, 2005); The Sculpture of William Tucker (Santa Barbara, 2002); Renoir. From Outsider to Old Master. 1870-1892. (Bridgestone Museum & Nagoya City Art Museum, 2001); The Impressionists at Argenteuil (National Gallery, Washington and the Wadsworth Atheneum, 2000); Monet in the 20th Century (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Royal Academy of Arts London, 1998-99); Monet. A Retrospective (Bridgestone Museum, Nagoya City Art Museum, and Hiroshima Museum, 1994-5); and Monet in the ‘90s. The Series Paintings (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Art Institute of Chicago, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1990).

Professor Tucker has appeared on the Charlie Rose Show, Good Morning America, The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, BBC Arts, and Arts and Entertainment, among many television programs.

Professor Tucker recently completed the catalogue of the 19th- and 20th-century paintings in the Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and is now writing a college level textbook on modern art called Never Neutral. Modern Art: Courbet to Pollock. He is also continuing to expand the offerings of Arts on the Point in Boston.