R. Tripp Evans is a Professor of Art History at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, where he holds the Mary L. Heuser Chair in the Arts.  He received his B.A. in Architectural History from the University of Virginia and his M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Art from Yale University.  At Wheaton, Tripp teaches American art and architecture from the pre-Columbian period to 1945, with an emphasis on the construction of national identity.  He has written two books, Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820-1915 (University of Texas Press: 2004) and Grant Wood: A Life (Alfred A. Knopf: 2010), the latter of which won the 2010 National Award for Arts Writing.  Tripp currently also serves on the boards of the Providence Preservation Society, the Providence Athenaeum, and the Graduate School Alumni Association of Yale University.