Denise Amy Baxter

Professor, Art History
Department of Art History
Associate Dean for Professional Development, Toulouse Graduate School
940-565-3986
Denise.Baxter@unt.edu
Art Building, Room 317

President of the College Art Association, CAA, Board of Directors, 2024-2026
CAA President's Statement

Research Area: the relationship between visual arts, material culture, fashion, and the construction of the modern self in 18th- and 19th-century France. 

About

Baxter earned her undergraduate degree with majors in Art History and French Literature from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are from the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Following a year of teaching as an adjunct instructor at UCSB, she started on the tenure track as an art historian of 18th-19th century European art at the University of North Texas. Consistently pairing art historical scholarship with public outreach and administrative positions, Baxter has served as Art History Program Coordinator during the tenure track, as Department Chair for four years upon receiving tenure, and for five years as the associate dean for Student and Academic Affairs of the College of Visual Arts and Design before her promotion to the Toulouse Graduate School.

A contributing editor to "A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Empire" (Bloomsbury, 2017) and co-editor of "Architectural Space in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Constructing Identities and Interiors "(Ashgate, 2010), Baxter has also published and presented on art historical methodologies and pedagogy.

Dr. Baxter is active nationally as an external evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, a member of the College Art Association’s Professional Practices Committee, and an editorial board member of Dress, the journal of the Costume Society of America.

Building a Building

As a member of the administrative leadership in the College of Visual Arts and Design for five years, Baxter was involved in every aspect, every meeting, and every decision regarding the $70 million construction and renovation of 238,000 square feet of classrooms, visual arts and design space from the groundbreaking in 2015 to the grand opening in 2019.