Erica E. Hirshler is the Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. An expert in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American painting, Dr. Hirshler has published extensively on John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Dennis Bunker, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer, and women artists and collectors. She is particularly interested in the artistic exchange between the United States and Europe and in issues of national identity; she also studies Boston’s history, art, and patronage. Dr. Hirshler holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD from Boston University; she has lectured at museums and other cultural institutions across the United States, Europe, and Japan.