Jeffrey Abt is Professor Emeritus in the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History and Design, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA. He has a BFA degree from Drake University, studied at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem, and completed an MFA at Drake. He pursued curatorial and exhibitions work at the Wichita Art Museum, the Special Collections Research Center of the University of Chicago, and at the University's Smart Museum of Art, before coming to Wayne State. He's an artist and writer, his artwork is in museum and corporate collections throughout the United States, and he has exhibited widely in America and abroad. Abt's books include, "American Egyptologist: The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute," published by the University of Chicago Press in 2011; "Valuing Detroit's Art Museum: A History of Fiscal Abandonment and Rescue," published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2017; and "Too Jewish or Not Jewish Enough: Ritual Objects and Avant-Garde Art at the Jewish Museum of New York," published by Berghahn in 2024.
