Michael Schreyach received his M.A. degree in art history from the University of Texas at Austin; continued his graduate coursework at Northwestern University; and earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a recipient of predoctoral fellowships from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Getty Research Institute, and has taught at several institutions, including the University of Southern California, UCLA, and Otis College of Art and Design. At Trinity, Dr. Schreyach is an Assistant Professor and a Berger Junior Faculty Research Fellow.

Professor Schreyach teaches courses on modern art in the United States and Europe from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, with an emphasis on modernist painting, criticism, and theory since 1930. His methodological approach combines close attention to historical sources with theoretical models often developed in other fields, such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literary criticism.

Dr. Schreyach’s research is guided by the conviction that the material specificity of artworks, and the particularity of our encounters with them, is of central importance in understanding modern art. A forthcoming book project investigates Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings from the point of view of American pragmatism. The study attempts to determine how the distinct visual effects of Pollock’s later works are conveyed technically, operate culturally, and can be situated historically--as well as how they might be interpreted philosophically. Other areas of expertise include the history of photography; the relationship of art and politics, 1930-1970; methods of art history; and ‘Modernism’ as a critical theory of the avant-garde. He has published essays and reviews in Apollo, Design Issues, and The State of Art Criticism (Routledge, 2007).