Christopher Dingwall

Chris Dingwall teaches design history in the Sam Fox School. He is an affiliate faculty member with the Department of African and African American Studies, the Department of Art History and Archaeology, the Department of American Culture Studies, and the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Equity. His research examines the history of race, capitalism, and material culture in the U.S., with particular focus on the experience of African Americans in the design industries from the age of emancipation to the present day. He is currently embarking on new research projects about Pan-African print culture in the Midwest and about the design history of the Black Arts Movement.

Dingwall is co-editor and lead author of “Black Designers in Chicago” (University of Chicago Press, 2026) and has written about design and material culture for scholarly journals, trade magazines, exhibition catalogs, and artist books. He has co-curated several exhibitions, including “African American Designers in Chicago” (Chicago Cultural Center, 2018), “Systems of Reproduction: Race and Design” (Kemper Museum Teaching Gallery, 2025), and “Building Bronzeville: Milwaukee’s Black Arts Movement” (Bronzeville Center for the Arts, 2026).

Dingwall’s work has been supported by Terra Foundation for American Art and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and has been recognized with the Provost’s Research Excellent Award at WashU (2025).