Rate My Professor Luke Smythe

Dr. Luke Smythe is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory in the Department of Fine Art within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. He earned a PhD in Art History from Yale University, with a dissertation titled Gerhard Richter: Lightness and Loss, completed between 2006 and 2012. Smythe also holds an MA from Columbia University and a BA from the University of Auckland. Prior to his appointment at Monash, he taught art history courses in New Zealand and the United States. From 2012 to 2014, he served as Curatorial Fellow in Postwar Art at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany. In addition, he has curated exhibitions at institutions including the Chinati Foundation, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Pinakothek der Moderne. Smythe teaches units such as Introduction to the History and Theory of Art, Museums, Archives and Cultural Heritage, and History and Theory of Photography, Film and Video. He also supervises graduate research students in fine art.

Smythe's research focuses on modern and contemporary German art, abstraction across media and regions, the transition from analogue to digital media, and the impact of generative AI on creative practice. His current book project explores the role of nature in the art of Sigmar Polke. Smythe's scholarship has received funding from the DAAD, Fulbright Foundation, Yale Centre for British Art, Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Anna Polke-Stiftung, Toi Aotearoa Creative New Zealand, and the Jennifer Gibbs Trust. He is the author of two monographs: Gerhard Richter, Individualism, and Belonging in West Germany (Routledge, 2022) and Gretchen Albrecht: Between Gesture and Geometry (Massey University Press, 2019; revised and expanded edition, 2024). His peer-reviewed articles and essays have appeared in prominent journals including Art History, October, Modernism/modernity, Art Journal, and Oxford Art Journal. Notable recent work includes Environmental Threats: Sigmar Polke Paints the End of Nature, published in Art History in 2025.