William Kloss, M.A.

Independent Art Historian,

The Smithsonian Associates,

Smithsonian Institution

i

P

rofessor William Kloss is an independent

art historian and scholar who lectures and

writes about a wide range of European

and American art. He was educated at Oberlin

College, where he earned a B.A. in English and

an M.A. in Art History.

Professor Kloss continued his postgraduate work as a Teaching Fellow at
the University of Michigan. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for
two years of study in Rome and was an Assistant Professor of Art History at
the University of Virginia, where he taught 17th- and 18th-century European
art and 19th-century French art. His courses were very highly rated by both
undergraduate and graduate students.

A resident of Washington DC, Professor Kloss has enjoyed a long association
with the Smithsonian Institution as an independent lecturer for the seminar
and travel program, presenting more than 100 courses in the United States
and abroad on subjects ranging from ancient Greek art to Impressionism to
the works of Winslow Homer. He has also been a featured lecturer for the
National Trust for Historic Preservation and for The Art Institute of Chicago
and a guest faculty lecturer for the American Arts Course at Sotheby’s
Institute of Art.

Professor Kloss serves on the Committee for the Preservation of the White
House, a presidential appointment he has held since 1990, and is a member
of the Portrait Advisory Panel for the U.S. Senate Commission on Art. He is
the author of several books, including the award-winning Art in the White
House: A Nation’s Pride and most recently coauthored United States Senate
Catalogue of Fine Art. He has also written articles published in Winterthur
Portfolio, The Magazine Antiques, American Arts Quarterly, White House
History, and Antiques & Fine Art and has recorded four earlier Teaching