Laura Evans teaches about art museums, art interpretation and art crime. Her academic
research and her teaching explore how museums can be both “for somebody” and “about
something”[1] by creating meaningful and humanistic experiences. She has been honored
for her teaching at UNT as a Distinguished Teaching Professor and with the Provost’s
OLLI at UNT Faculty Award for her work with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Evans specializes in art crime: thefts, forgeries, and vandalism. She studied art
crime at the Association of Research into Crimes Against Art, Amelia, Italy, and has
a postgraduate degree in antiquities trafficking and art crime from the University
of Glasgow, Scotland. She has led art crime history trips through Europe and lectures
about art crime globally. Her book, "The Atlas of Art Crime," is a collection of 75 true stories of art crime from around the world. For more
information about Evans’ art crime work, visit her website, LauraEvansArtCrime.com.
Evans received her Ph.D. at The Ohio State University, a master’s at the University
of Toronto, and a bachelor’s from Denison University, Granville, Ohio, and she has
studied abroad in Finland, Brazil and New Zealand. Evans has worked at art museums
worldwide, from the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in Western Australia to the
National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and from the University of Toronto Art
Centre to the Lopdell Gallery in New Zealand, with many more in between. She has collaborated
with museums around the country, such as the Kimbell Museum of Art in Fort Worth,
Texas, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to provide trainings.
[1] Weil, S. (1999). From being about something to being for somebody: The ongoing
transformation of American museums. Daedelus, 128 (3), pp. 229-258.