Susan Delson is an arts journalist and film historian based in New York City. Her books include Dudley Murphy, Hollywood Wild Card (University of Minnesota Press, 2006), Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals (Prestel, 2011), and Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time, published in late 2021 by Indiana University Press.

The intersection of film and art is one of Delson’s longtime interests. A former film programmer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she has written and lectured on such topics as the making of Ballet mécanique, the influence of silent film on the art of René Magritte, and photographer Helen Levitt as a cinéaste. She taught for several years in the Museum Studies program at New York University. 

Early in her career Delson was a filmmaker; among her projects is Cause and Effect (1989), one of the first films produced by Todd Haynes, Christine Vachon, and Barry Ellsworth for their company Apparatus Productions (recently restored by IndieCollect). Grants and awards include the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, 2020; Art Omi Residency, Ghent, NY, 2012; Dora Maar House Residency, Menerbes, France, 2011; and Ucross Foundation Residency, Clearmont, WY, 2011.

Delson’s writing on art appears in the Wall Street Journal and other publications.