Al Acres is the Wright Family Term Professor of Art History. Before joining the faculty at Georgetown, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Oregon, and Princeton University, where he was named Robert Remsen Laidlaw ’04 Preceptor in the Humanities. His core area of research is northern European art of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. His first book, Renaissance Invention and the Haunted Infancy (Brepols/Harvey Miller, 2013), examines how and why a vast range of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century images of Christ’s infancy allude either to his death or to the devil, and sometimes to both. His new book, Jan van Eyck within His Art (2023), explores the unprecedented variety of ways in which this most influential of painters infused his work with his name, image, and conspicuous ingenuity. It appears in the Renaissance Lives series published by Reaktion Books, London, and is distributed in the U.S. by University of Chicago Press. His articles and reviews have been published in a variety of major journals and edited volumes, and he has lectured widely in the U.S. and internationally. Recognition and support of his work has included the Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize from the College Art Association, the Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellowship in the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, and the Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professorship at the University of Bristol.
His survey courses at Georgetown include western art (Renaissance–Modern), Northern Renaissance, Italian Renaissance, and the History of Prints. Recent upper-level seminar courses have focused on major artists (Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel) as well as conceptual topics (Ideas of Realism, On Painting) that range widely across historical periods and geography. All of his courses, which emphasize careful observation and interpretation within shifting historical contexts, include class visits to museums. In addition to his work on numerous committees and initiatives at Georgetown, he recently served two terms (2015-21) as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History. In 2023-24 he is serving as Interim Director of Georgetown University Art Galleries.