Kristine Nielsen

Kristine Nielsen is an art historian of modern and contemporary art. She is Associate Professor of Art History and a Faculty Affiliate of the International & Global Studies Program. She was the Interim Director of the Joyce Eichorn Ames School of Art & Design, 2024-2025, and directed the International Humanities Program at Illinois Wesleyan University, 2021-2023.

Nielsen’s research encompasses two principal areas. Her first area of focus examines iconoclasm and public monuments in twentieth-century Germany, with particular emphasis on the political monuments of the former German Democratic Republic. Her second and more recent line of inquiry explores Nordic contemporary art and the historical dimensions of Nordic colonialism.

Prior to joining the faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University, Nielsen was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities through the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. She also held a joint appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Art & Design and the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Her scholarly work has been supported by numerous prestigious fellowships and grants, including those from the Getty Research Institute, the Stone Summer Theory Institute, Knud Højgaards Fond, the University of Chicago’s Lipman Fellowship, Century Scholarship, University Grant, Harrison Doolittle Travel Fellowship, Humanities Division Travel Grant, the Kathleen J. Shelton Memorial Travel Fellowship, and the Visiting Committee on the Visual Arts Fellowship.