Michael Amy
Professor
Michael Amy
Professor
Education
BA, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium); MA, Ph.D., New York University
Bio
Michaël J. Amy is an art historian, critic, writer, public speaker, and curator with a B.A. from the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. He is a Distinguished Professor of Art History in the College of Art and Design (CAD) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).
Michaël Amy, the leading authority on Michelangelo's commission for Apostle statues for the Cathedral of Florence, is an expert on 15th and 16th century Renaissance art and architecture, as well as 20th and 21st century art. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Burlington Magazine, Art in America, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (Grendler, P. F. ed., New York, 1999), the acts of the international symposium Santa Maria del Fiore: The Cathedral and its Sculpture (Haines, M. ed., Fiesole, 2001), the Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, Art & Antiques, the Nieuw Tijdschrift van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel, DITS: Violence, Art China, Sculpture, tema celeste, and Blasphèmes et Libertés. His fifty essays on contemporary art have appeared in monographs, exhibition catalogues, and brochures.
Michaël Amy’s numerous exhibition reviews have appeared in Art in America, Sculpture, tema celeste, Apollo, Art News, Art on Paper, The New York Sun, Art & Culture, and Kunst & Cultuur, and his book reviews have been published in CAA.Reviews. His interviews with the jazz musicians Warne Marsh and Max Roach were broadcast by the cultural program of the Flemish Radio BRT III, and his interviews with visual artists have appeared in Art in America, Sculpture, tema celeste, Afterimage, The Art Section, De Financieel-Economische Tijd, and exhibition catalogues.
Michaël Amy’s book One to One, Conversation avec Tony Oursler, appeared in 2006 (Brussels, Facteur Humain), his book Michaël Borremans: Whistling a Happy Tune appeared in 2008 (Ghent, Ludion), and his book Hiroshi Senju, co-authored with Rachel Baum, was published in 2009 (Milan, Skira). The exhibition and panel he organized on contemporary abstract painting on disc-shaped supports were featured at Wooster Arts Space in New York City in February 2006, and his exhibition on quirkiness in contemporary abstract painting and sculpture was featured at the Westport Arts Center in Westport, CT, in November and December 2007.
Michaël Amy has read papers at the international symposium Santa Maria del Fiore: The Cathedral and its Sculpture held at The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, Settignano, and (virtually) at the University of Rochester, NY, as well as at meetings of the Renaissance Society of America, the Provo / Athens Renaissance Sculpture Conference, the Central Renaissance Conference, the International Congress on Medieval Studies (at Kalamazoo), the New College Conference on Medieval-Renaissance Studies, the Art History Symposium at SUNY Geneseo, the Yeongwol International Museum Forum (South Korea), and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. He has given guest lectures at schools, colleges, universities, and museums, including Oberlin College, Bowdoin College, Colgate University, Gettysburg College, University of Central Florida, Orlando (virtual), the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Hofstra University, the Università degli Studi di Ferrara, and the Dallas Museum of Art.
Select Scholarship
Currently Teaching
In the News
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October 15, 2025
Amy publishes in 'The Art Section'
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May 9, 2025
Amy presents keynote
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April 11, 2025
Amy publishes interview in ‘The Arts Section’
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February 26, 2025
Amy publishes interview
Featured Work
Lorenzo il Magnifico’s Façade for the Cathedral of Florence and Michelangelo’s Apostle Statues, with an Addendum on the St. Matthew in 1515
Michael Amy
Lorenzo il Magnifico’s Façade for the Cathedral of Florence and Michelangelo’s Apostle Statues, with an Addendum on the St. Matthew in 1515, in Michelangelo Buonarroti: Leben, Werk und Wirkung....
"The Body as Machine, Taken to Its Extreme"
Michael Amy
In The New York Times, Arts & Leisure, January 20, 2002, pp.37-38 Newspaper article.
"Michelangelo’s Drawings for Apostle Statues for the Cathedral of Florence"
Michael Amy
"Michelangelo’s Drawings for Apostle Statues for the Cathedral of Florence", in "Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies", 37, 2006, pp.479-517.


