Amy Brook Snider Papers

Amy Brook Snider was an artist and pioneering educator whose commitment and innovation made a deep impact in the art education and pedagogy field where she worked for over fifty years.

A life-long New Yorker, Snider was born in Queens on July 26, 1940 to parents, Silas and Claire (née Fox) Snider, where she grew in the Sunnyside neighborhood along with her younger sister and fellow artist/educator, Jenny Snider. In her paper,"Growing Up in the Living Room," Snider credits this culturally and intellectually vibrant community and her homelife with shaping her progressive worldview, fomenting her passion for arts, and later informing the communal atmosphere she promoted in her academic workspaces. As a youth, Snider attended the High School of Music and Art, where she took art courses with Sylvia Milgram whose instruction and approach had a lasting influence on Snider. Following her passion for art and education, Snider pursued and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Queens College in NY in 1961 and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Madison, Wisconsin in 1964. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Snider also completed courses in other disciplines such as Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Anthropology, perspectives and techniques she later incorporated into her own theories and approach to art education. Upon the completion and submission of her dissertation surrounding her “Art and Self” course at Pratt, Snider was awarded a doctorate in Education from NYU in 1995. In 1961, Snider began her career in the art education field as an art teacher teaching at various public schools such as JHS 88, JHS 136, PS 9/79, and others located in the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Snider continued in this role in the New York City public school system up until budget cuts to the arts in the mid-70s ended her time there. After working on various arts projects including a South Street Seaport project and working with elderly artists, Snider joined the faculty at Pratt Institute in 1978. In 1982, Snider became the chairperson of the newly reformed Arts and Design Education Department, overseeing its development and operation. For forty years as a chairperson and professor, she worked to shape the mission and approach of the department, to fashion novel curricula, and to bestow upon her students an understanding of her concept of the “Artist-Teacher.” During her tenure as chair at Pratt, she expanded existing arts programming, which included developing international exchange programs, and forged new community partnerships with charter schools and local education advocacy groups. Additionally, she spearheaded internal projects at Pratt Institute such as the Writing Across the Curriculum journal project and secured grant funding for various programs supporting middle school, high school, and incarcerated students such as the Design Initiative for Community Empowerment (DICE), Saturday Art School, and others. In 2012, Snider stepped down as department chair and once again joined the faculty as a full professor. In this role, she supervised student teachers and advised thesis students in the undergraduate and graduate Art and Design Education programs. In recognition of her years of work and dedication, she was awarded the title of Professor Emerita by Pratt Institute in 2016.

Extending beyond the confines of the classroom, Snider’s exploration in practice and scholarly contributions to the art education field reaches back to the early 1970s. Snider often created experiential educational projects and exhibitions that drew from her wide-ranging intellectual interests. Many early projects such as the “Room as a Loom” (1975) and “Hair Tying Exhibition” (1974), featuring frequent collaborators such as Theodora Skipitares and Jenny Snider, reflect Amy Snider’s infusion of performance and play into lesson planning to dissolve some of the traditional boundaries of the classroom to engage students. Snider’s desire to challenge format and inject performance into presentation found its way into her long standing participation in the National Arts Education Association (NAEA). Beginning in the 1980s and continuing up into the 2010s, Snider was a frequent presenter, contributor, and collaborator in projects featured at the annual NAEA conferences. These presentations and conference exhibitions sought to expand the presentation framework and activate the audience, which she accomplished through use of puppetry and performance. In addition to these presentations, she made further contributions to the discourse through her essays and reflections upon her projects, exhibitions, and NAEA conferences, which were often published in art education journals and Pratt publications.

An avid researcher and prolific reader, Snider drew inspiration from a wide range of sources and disciplines. Many of the exhibitions and projects she created stem from her personal interest in the role of storytelling and narrative in education and art; the output of untrained, outsider, and folk artists; intergenerational education; and the conception of self as expressed through biography and art. These interests coupled with her progressive and feminist outlook inspired her curation and facilitation of projects such as the “Images of Experience” (1982), “Why Weddings?” (2003), “Childhood Regained” (2007), “Handwriting Exhibition” (1996), and many others. With her decades of classroom experience and unique insight and depth of scholarship, Snider’s expertise was sought internationally, leading her to present at workshops and conferences across the globe as well as to consult with numerous educational projects such as the Beginning With Children School, Achievement First, and “The 4th R: Teaching Observational Drawing to Young Children.” Over the years, Snider received acclaim for her contribution to the field of Art Education including the June King McFee Award in 2002.

After a lifetime of dedication and advocacy for art education, Amy Brook Snider passed away on December 17, 2018. Outspoken and passionate, Snider truly made an impact on her field and left behind a deep impression on many artists and educators working and creating today.

References

“Pratt Remembers Art and Design Education Advocate and Pedagogical Reformer Amy Brook Snider.” (2019, January 28). Pratt News. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://www.pratt.edu/news/pratt-remembers-art-and-design-education-advocate-and-pedagogical-reformer/

Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. (2019, January 3). Amy Brook Snider, FF Alumn, in Memoriam. https://franklinfurnace.org/goings-on-01-03-2019/

Kushins, J. (2018. December 30). Amy Brook Snider, PhD: Teacher, Mentor, Friend. Art Education Outside the Lines. https://insideoutarted.wordpress.com/tag/amy-brook-snider/

Snider, A. B. (2002, March 23). June King McFee Award Acceptance Speech, [Acceptance speech]. National Art Education Association Conference 2002, Miami Beach, Florida, United States. https://naeawc.net/Archive/Archive_Events/Archive_Awards/Award-speeches_McFee/2002_McFee-Brook_Snider.pdf