Rate My Professor Adrian Duran

Adrian R. Duran is a Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History within the College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Born and raised in New Jersey, he earned a B.A. in Art History from the University of Notre Dame and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Delaware. Prior to his appointment at UNO, Duran taught at the Memphis College of Art. At UNO, he has held various committee roles, including the Retention Analysis Network in Student Affairs, Community Engagement initiatives, and the University Committee on Library and Learning Resources. He serves as affiliated faculty in the Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS), the Goldstein Center for Human Rights, the Medical Humanities program, and the Honors Program, where he co-received the Outstanding Honors Faculty Award in 2020 with Zach Darwish. Additionally, he has been recognized with the Department of Art and Art History Outstanding Research/Creative Award and the Art and Art History Special Projects Fund Award from UNO.

Duran is a specialist in Modern and Contemporary Art, particularly Italian Modernism. His research focuses on mid-20th century painting and sculpture in Italy in relation to Cold War politics as expressed in art objects and critical discourse, issues of influence in international abstraction during the 1940s and 1950s, and art criticism addressing regionalism and language in Southern contemporary art alongside intersections of contemporary photography and New Media practices. He teaches courses including Survey of Western Art II, Modern Art I, Modern Art II, Contemporary Art, Art in Theory and Practice Since 1900, and Special Topics in Art History: Art Criticism. Key publications include his book Painting, Politics, and the New Front of Cold War Italy (Routledge, 2013), the first English-language monograph on Il Fronte Nuovo delle Arti. He has contributed reviews such as “Paint Made Flesh” and “The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl” in caa.reviews, “Inner Ear Vision” in Flash Art International (2019), and “Ottocento: da Canova al Quarto Stato” in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. Duran has delivered invited lectures, including “Notes on Making: Art, Labor, and Language in Postwar Rome,” and presented papers on topics like Abstract Expressionism’s Italian reception and postwar Italian art at conferences such as the Nineteenth Century Studies Association and the Biblioteca Hertziana.