Robin Poynor

Robin Poynor received his BA from Southeastern Louisiana University in his hometown of Hammond, Louisiana. He earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and the MA and PhD in art history from Indiana University. His initial field research was in Nigeria, where he explored the cultural history of the Kingdom of Owo, a Yoruba realm. After more than a half century, he still maintains contact through various means with hundreds of individuals from Owo.

After teaching art history at the University of Minnesota Duluth and serving as curator for the university’s Tweed Museum of Art, he arrived in Gainesville in 1978. Long involved with museum work and exhibitions, Robin developed the Museum Studies Program for the University of Florida. Over the years he has helped to grow the African collection at the Harn Museum of Art where he curated the first exhibitions of African art. Many of Robin’s masters and doctoral students now work as curators or professors in museums and university departments in numerous institutions.

Several of his books on Africa and the African Diaspora have received awards. Robin continues to write in his field and serves as an editor for African Arts, the academic journal for the expressive arts of Africa. ACASA, the international academic organization for the study of the arts of Africa, awarded him the Leadership Award for lifetime achievement in the field in 2024. This past year the Center for African Studies at UF established a travel fund in Robin’s name to make it possible for a new generation of scholars of African cultures to follow in his footsteps. The fund will provide support for study/research in Africa for at least two students each year for the foreseeable future.

In addition to keeping up with his discipline, Robin enjoys gardening and spending time with his grandchildren. Robin and his wife Donna have one son.