With an enduring interest in anachronism and alternative theories of temporality and memory, art historian Wendy Ligon Smith uses archival research and object-based inquiry to investigate the intersections of photography, fashion, painting, literature and opera in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Smith also teaches on the methodologies of art collectors and how objects are used to craft historical narratives. 

Her first book, Fortuny: Time, Space, Light was published with Yale UP in 2022 and is based on archival research in Venice, supported by several grants from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Smith has published several other chapters in exhibition catalogues, journals and edited volumes on Mariano Fortuny’s designs and lighting inventions; Émile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames’ (1883) depiction of feminized criminality and sensorial marketing techniques; leitmotifs in Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27); and the impact of Richard Wagner on visual arts and theatre technology. She has presented her research in conferences, workshops, invited seminars and interviews in a wide range of places, including Trinity College; the University of Cambridge; The Oxford Research Center in the Humanities at University of Oxford; the College Art Association; Università IUAV di Venezia; Jefferson Market Library (New York Public Library); and the Forschungsinstitut für Musiktheater, Thurnau (Universität di Bayreuth). 

Smith earned her Ph.D. in art history and visual studies from the University of Manchester (England) and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Engagements program for four years. In 2023-24 she was the Butler Engagement Fellow at UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art and is the curator of an exhibition of Torah pointers that will open in February 2025. This upcoming year Smith will continue to teach and develop curricula in the Engagements program.