Erin Hein is a scholar of seventeenth-century Italian and French art. Her research interests include chance, risk, and failure in artistic practice and theory; creativity and genius; and the history of ideas. Her dissertation examined the ways artists encountered and engaged with accidents and chance in their studios. She is currently working on a book project entitled The Accidental Baroque: Chance and Fortuna in Early Modern Art and Theory, which explores the relationship of chance-based artmaking to human agency and the natural world.

Professor Hein previously taught undergraduate art history courses at the University of Delaware and worked as an educator at the Hispanic Society. At the University of Iowa, she offers classes in European Renaissance and Baroque art.

Education:

PhD, Art History, University of Delaware
MA, Art History, Case Western Reserve University
BS, Chemistry, University of Alabama
BA, Art History, University of Alabama