Yve-Alain Bois is the Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University. He has written extensively on 20th century art, from Matisse, Picasso, Malevich and Mondrian to post-war American art (among others: Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Robert Ryman, Brice Marden, Donald Judd, Edward Ruscha and Mel Bochner).

A collection of his essays, Painting as Model, has been published by M.I.T. Press in 1990. He co-organized the 1994-5 retrospective of Piet Mondrian in The Hague, Washington and New York. In 1996, he curated the exhibition “L’informe, mode d’emploi” with Rosalind Krauss at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The book accompanying this exhibition has recently been published in English under the title Formless: A User’s Guide (Zone Books, 1997).

He most recently curated the exhibitions "Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry" at the Kimbell Museum of Art (Fort Worth, Texas), and “Ellsworth Kelly: The Early Drawings 1948-1955” at the Fogg Artt Museum (Cambridge, MA); this latter exhibition also circulated to the High Museum (Atlanta), the Chicago Art Institute, and three European Museums.

Bois is one of the editors of the journal October and a contributing editor of Artforum. He is currently preparing the catalogue raisonné of Barnett Newman.