Art History

Sienna Stevens (MA, ‘23) is presenting a paper “‘A‘ole au e ha‘alele i kou leo”: Situating Robert Dampier’s Dual Portraits of Kamehameha III and Nāhi‘ena‘ena on the Cusp of Imperial Supremacy” at the Case Western Reserve University’s 48th Annual Cleveland Art History Symposium.

The Kingsley Art Club hosted a conversation with collector, philanthropist and UC Davis alum Alan Templeton (B.A., art history and psychology, ‘82) in which he discusses his journey as a collector and talks about some of the many exquisite drawings, prints and paintings he has donated to the Crocker Art Museum.

Graduate student Srđan Tunić (M.A., ‘23) will present a paper at the most recent Queer and Gender Studies in the Slavic Context meeting. His paper, “The Woman With the Gun: Nasta Rojc’s Self-Portrait in Hunter Suit in the Light of Feminist, Queer, and Postcolonial Theories,” takes a look at Croatian artist Nasta Rojc and the posthumous reception of her work. Srdan closely examines “Autoportret u lovačkom odijelu” (Self-Portrait in Hunter Suit) from 1912, to explore postcolonial interpretations of her work.

“Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott” is a retrospective exhibition co-curated by alum Matthew Weseley (M.A., ‘13) and art historian Lowery Stokes Sims. Now at the New Museum in Manhattan, “Art and Race Matters” was originally organized by the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati–this exhibition has been receiving coverage in the New York press.

The Department of Art and Art History is saddened by the passing of art history professor emeritus Robert Grigg on June 3, 2022. Robert Grigg taught the art of early Christian, Medieval and Northern Renaissance at UC Davis for 24 years.

The Davis Enterprise has published an obituary here.

Congratulations to Emily Szasz (M.A.,’ 22) on her new position as Internship Programs Coordinator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York!

Emily will coordinate all aspects of high school and college internships, including the High School Apprenticeship and Holocaust Education Internship programs. Emily will also develop curriculum, as well as teach and supervise interns. 

Professor Katharine Burnett presented her research, “Sino-Viet Tea Culture and Teapots before 1700,” at the international symposium, Tea: Nature, Culture, Society, 1650-1850, organized by the Linnean Society. This three-day event took place June 22-25, 2020 but was also online.

The detailed program is available here.

Graduate student Srđan Tunić (M.A., ‘23) will present a paper at the Ljubljana Street Art Festival conference this coming June 28-29 in Slovenia. Srđan’s paper will be presented as part of Panel 1: Political Peripheries of Street Art. His paper, entitled ”F*** Gays Homophobia!

Congratulations to Sarah Grimes (art history and design double-major) who is among the winners of this year’s Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Research.

Join the Art History club on Friday, June 3 at 1 pm in Everson 148 for a movie and potluck.

Please RSVP by completing the form via the QR code.

Congratulations to the Class of 2022!

The Annual Art History Graduate Colloquium and Undergraduate Award ceremony was held Friday, June 3, 2022 at the Manetti Shrem Museum.

Samantha Cruz, Isobella Payne, Anya Shulman, Emily Szasz and Dada Wang presented and defended their theses in front of faculty, students, and friends.

Presentations:

Samantha Cruz, “Filipino Identity and European Influence in Fernando Amorsolo’s Paintings of Rural Life”

Congratulations to M.A. candidate Isobella Payne on her newly awarded summer internship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington!

Art history M.A. candidate Sienna Stevens will be off to New Bedford, Massachusetts this summer where she will intern with the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Sienna will help catalog their collection of objects which includes Māori, Aboriginal, and Hawaiian material culture as well as historic artifacts on whaling history. She will also craft and publish an essay in the museum publication.

Art History M.A. candidates Srđan Tunić and Anya Shulman, and second-year M.F.A. candidate Kelley O’Leary will present public lectures in “Weird Studies,” a graduate student symposium sponsored by the Department of French and Italian. The symposium will take place Saturday, April 23 and continue on the following Saturday, April 30 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Professor Heghnar Watenpaugh will be a guest speaker at CSU Sacramento’s Festival of the Arts 2022, discussing her book The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript: from Genocide to Justice. Her book examines the eight illuminated pages of a medieval Armenian Gospels manuscript which were discovered in the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2010, prompting a lawsuit.