Art History

Congratulations to Layne Little, lecturer in art history and religious studies, on his National Endowment for the Humanities Professional Development Grant.

National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)’s first Annual Vartan Gregorian Memorial Lecture features a presentation by Professor Talinn Grigor and co-author Professor Houri Berberian, professor of history and Armenian Studies at UC Irvine, on Armenian women and representation. 

On April 5, Professor Heghnar Watenpaugh will present “From Genocide to Justice: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript” at the Department of Art History at Rice University. Her presentation, which will be online and open to the public, will be moderated by Farshid Emami, professor of art history at Rice University.

Professor Talinn Grigor will be discussing her latest book at the Yale School of Architecture on Monday, March 28, 2022. Her book, The Persian Revival: The Imperialism of the Copy in Iranian and Parsi Architecture, was published in 2021 by Penn State University Press.

The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University is hosting Professor Talinn Grigor for a conversation on her new book, The Persian Revival: The Imperialism of the Copy in Iranian and Parsi Architecture. Joining Grigor in this virtual conversation will be Madhuri Desai, associate professor of art history and Asian studies at The Pennsylvania State University.

Congratulations to second-year graduate student Dada Wang who will present her paper “Reframing Narratives of Water Control: Mechanisms of Resistance in Chinese Performance Art” at the Mary L. Cornille Annual Boston University Graduate Symposium in the History of Art & Architecture on April 2. 

On Thursday, January 20th, Professor Talinn Grigor will participate in the vrtual symposium “Surrealism Beyond Borders” sponsored by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Caitlin Schwarz (M.A.,’ 19) explores Victorian mourning culture with a focus on how the Victorians celebrated romantic and familial love through jewelry and other everyday objects in her public lecture ”‘Til Death Do Us Part: How the Victorians Kept Love Alive from Beyond the Grave.”

This lecture will take place via Zoom on Saturday, February 5, 2-3 pm. The lecture is part of the Pence Gallery’s Art History Lecture Series and is free and open to the public. 

Professor Talinn Grigor explores the ruins of Persepolis in the aftermath of its excavation by Ernst Herzfeld in a public lecture entitled “Persepolis After Lindon Smith: The Modernist Afterlife of the Ruins.” As an accurate architectural prototype as well as a utopian-nationalist trope, the image of Persepolis circulated in and out of artistic and sociopolitical life both in Iran and abroad, including the artistic renderings by Joseph Lindon Smith in the 1930s.

In his most recent article, just published in Journal of the Walters Art Museum (Vol. 75 2021), Professor Michael Yonan grapples with the ubiquity of ceramic things across historical eras, global cultures, and social classes and the challenge this presents to historians attempting to conceptualize ceramic arts. He argues that a shared interpretive framework for this vast array of ceramic things can be found in the idea of materiality.

Alumnus and philanthropist Alan Templeton (B.A., art history and psychology, ‘82) recently received the highest honor U.C. Davis bestows: the UC Davis Medal.

First year Art History graduate student Srđan Tunić, along with his colleagues in Street Art Belgrade, have just completed a project dedicated to making street art accessible to blind and visually impaired individuals using 3D printing technology.

How have artists and arts workers been conducting their careers and their lives during the last eighteen months? In a piece written for SF MOMA’s Open Space, alum Daniel Trejo (B.A., art history and art studio, ‘13) shares his experiences of making art in the Sacramento region as a Latinx artist in  “Thoughts at 70 mph”.

Professor Katharine Burnett participated in the latest Asian Food Study Conference with her talk on ”How Do We Know When Culture Crosses the Border? The Case of Sino-Viet Teapots before 1700.” She presented (online) at the panel, Tea Drinking: History, Ceremony and Arts in the conference which took place in Hangzhou, Kusatsu from December 11–12, 2021.

In a recent opinion piece in Newsweek, Professor Heghnar Watenpaugh discusses a pair of lawsuits now before the International Court of Justice and their possible impact on the prevention of cultural heritage destruction and accountability for destruction.