Amy Lyford’s research centers on twentieth-century American and European artistic practices, with a special interest in the histories of photography and sculpture. She is particularly invested in exploring issues of gender, sexuality, race within modernism – and how such concepts impact identity formation, both individual and collective.

Lyford is the author of two books:  Surrealist Masculinities: Gender Anxiety and the Aesthetics of Post-World War I Reconstruction in France (UC Press, 2007); and Isamu Noguchi’s Modernism: Negotiating Race, Labor, and Nation, 1930-1950 (UC Press, 2013) for which she won the prestigious Charles C. Eldredge Prize in 2015. Lyford’s research has been supported by numerous fellowships, including the Fulbright Foundation, Kress Foundation, Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Lyford’s research deeply informs her teaching and pedagogy, with courses spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries, including History of Photography, Modern and Contemporary Art, and a Faculty-Led Study abroad course on Paris-Berlin: Capitals and Crossroads of the Twentieth Century. She teaches regularly in the College’s Cultural Studies Program, mentors students in the College’s summer Undergraduate Research Program, and engages students in research-based projects that incorporate archival and digital practices.