Sandra F. Racek

Sandra Racek (she/her) is a historian of northern European art focused on the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Her work bridges scholarly inquiry and curatorial practice, with research interests in court collecting, artistic exchange, and the intersections of gender and identity in the early modern era. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History from Northwestern University, with a dissertation that investigated themes of disguise, gender, and theatricality in early modern Netherlandish art. Sandra also holds an MA from University College London and a BA from Fordham University, where she studied both Art History and Spanish Literature. In addition to teaching at SAIC, she is a contributing curator for the exhibition Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Art and Agency in European Prints, 1475–1800 hosted by the Krannert Museum of Art at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She also a collections management consultant for private and commercial collections in Chicago. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and she remains active in shaping conversations around equity and access in the field.