Marilyn Houlberg is a leading expert on the arts and culture of Haitian Vodou. She is currently Professor Emeritus of Liberal Arts and Professor Emeritus of Art History

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

, Theory, and Criticism

Art criticism

Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty...

 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, having taught there since 1974.

Education

Houlberg entered college at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, earning her BFA

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

 in 1963, and her MAT

Master of Arts in Teaching

The Master of Arts in Teaching degree is generally a pre-service degree that usually requires a minimum of 30 semester hours beyond the Bachelor's degree. While the program often requires education classes in order to meet state licensure requirements, it emphasizes advanced course work in a...

 in 1967. She then went to University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

, earning her M.A.

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in 1973.

Exhibitions

Houlberg has traveled to Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

 since the 1960s. Her work in Haiti has formed the basis for a number of influential exhibitions and publications. Her exhibitions include the groundbreaking traveling exhibition "Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou" in 1995; "Creative Inspiration: The Arts of Haitian Vodou" at the Musee d'Art Haitien du College Saint Pierre in Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....

, Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

, in 1999; and the traveling exhibition "Haiti: Vodou Visionaries" which opened in Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....

 and traveled to Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

.

In addition to her exhibition work on Haiti, The Marilyn Houlberg Photographic Archive documents cultural aspects of post-Independence Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This archive is currently being catalogued for the Elisofon Library, National Museum of African Art, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Publications

• "Ibeji Images of the Yoruba", African Arts, Vol. 7 (1973)
• "Haitian Studio Photography: A Hidden World of Images". In Rebeecca Busselle, ed., Haiti: Feeding the Spirit (1992)
• (Introduction) Stephen Marc, The black trans-Atlantic experience: street life and culture in England, Ghana, Jamaica, and the United States (1992)
• Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou (exhibition catalog, 1998)
• (Introduction) Phyllis Galembo, Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti (2005)

Houlberg also contributed several articles to periodicals such as African Arts

African Arts (journal)

African Arts is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the study and discussion of traditional, contemporary, and popular African arts. It was founded in 1967 and is published online and in hard copy by the MIT Press, which distributes the journal for the James S. Coleman African Studies...

and The New Observations Magazine.