Kerr Houston is an art historian and critic whose scholarship has largely focused on the Italian Renaissance, embodied viewership, and the history of art criticism.

He is the author of An Introduction to Art Criticism (2012) and The Place of the Viewer (2019), and of more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles, which have appeared in journals such as Art Journal, Gesta, NKA, and Source: Notes in the History of Art. Kerr regularly teaches the first-year seminar Art Matters, as well as courses in Italian Renaissance art, art criticism, and art historical methodologies; he is also an occasional instructor for Johns Hopkins, and regularly gives lectures to local arts groups. He earned his B.A. from Williams College, and his Ph.D. from Yale University, and lives in Baltimore.