Eddie Chambers was born in Wolverhampton, England and gained a BA (Hons) Fine Art degree from Sunderland Polytechnic in 1983. He now holds a PhD from Goldsmiths College, University of London, awarded in 1998, for his dissertation researching press and public responses to Black visual arts practice in England in the 1980s. Chambers began organising exhibitions while still a student. Since then, he has organised a large number of exhibitions in Britain and abroad. In 1989 he established the African and Asian Visual Artists’ Archive, a Black artists' research and reference facility, co-ordinating the project for several years until the autumn of 1992. Living between Bristol, England, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Austin, Texas, he continues to research visual arts activity, organise exhibitions and write on various aspects of visual arts practice, alongside his teaching.
Eddie Chambers is a Professor, in the Department of Art and Art History, at the University of Texas at Austin, teaching visual arts of the African Diaspora. See http://www.utexas.edu. He was (between 2014 and 2020) a field editor, with responsibility for assigning reviews of publications relating to African American Art, African Diaspora Art and African Art, for caa.reviews, the open access online review portal of the College Art Association.
His book Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain, was published by I. B. Tauris in 2017. See bloomsbury.com for more details. He was the editor of the recently-published Routledge Companion to African American Art History.
Eddie Chambers photo by
Sarie Potter (South Africa)