Faculty BookshelfRecent Works
Innovation or Afterthought? Dating the San Giobbe Retrochoir
in Art, Architecture, and Identity in Venice and its Territories, 1450-1750
"Scholarship has vacillated between seeing the San Giobbe retrochoir as a typical example of the shift of the choir from the nave to the space behind the high altar in the Counter Reformation (hence dating it to the early seventeenth century) or instead as a pioneering example built in the fifteenth century of a type of space that later became more common...Allen presents compelling documentary and structural evidence to support the earlier date." —Monika Schmitter, University of Massachusetts Amherst
A May-December Romance? Time and Collaboration in The Seasons
in Merce Cunningham: Common Time
"The exhibition catalogue, a tour de force of scholarship that contains an exhaustive time line of the company and insightful essays by contributors including art historians Juliet Bellow and Douglas Crimp and musicologist Benjamin Piekut, helps to flesh out other aspects that could only be glanced at in the show." -Julia Bryan-Wilson, Artforum 55, no. 9 (May 2017): 326-27.
Modernism on Stage:
The Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-Garde
"Elegantly written and sumptuously illustrated, this wonderful book offers a fascinating journey through the rich intersections between music, painting, the decorative arts, and performance on the Ballets Russes stage. What is at stake here is no less than a rethinking of the concept of modernism from an intermedial perspective. Modernism on Stage is a tour de force not to be missed by anyone interested in the Ballets Russes and the Parisian avant-garde." - Marion Schmid, French Studies 67, no. 4 (October 2013): 573-574.
The Sacre "Au Printemps": Parisian Receptions of the Ballets Russes
in Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris 1870-1914
“Juliet Bellow recounts with care how the newspaper press slandered foreign-born artists as ‘barbarian’…Bellow’s essay, together with that of Zoë Marie Jones, best illustrates how modern artists’ transnational identities dovetailed with a defiance of other rigid labels and classifications.” Alexis Clark, Art History 39, no. 3 (June 2016): 612-15
Eloquence and Intertextuality in the Sistine Chapel
in Gifts in Return: Essays in Honour of Charles Dempsey
“Gifts in Return is a rich and richly varied volume; as such, it represents a splendid homage to the range, depth, and transformative power of the scholarship of Charles Dempsey.” — Stuart Lingo, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Washington
"Reddita lux est": Raphael and the Pursuit of Eloquence in Leonine Rome
in Artists at Court: Image-Making and Identity, 1300-1500
"This lively and rewarding collection considers the relationship between artistic identity and court culture in Renaissance Italy and Northern Europe." -Jill Burke, University of Edinburgh
Envisioning Gender in Burgundian Devotional Art, 1350-1530:
Experience, Authority, Resistance
“Gender is a topic only rarely and only quite recently addressed in the study of early Netherlandish art. Andrea Pearson's fascinating book throws down the gauntlet, demanding that we think more deeply about issues of intention and artistic format. [....] This is a highly stimulating and beautifully researched book that should be of great interest to scholars of early modern European culture.” Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Kay Fortson Chair in European Art, University of Texas at Austin
Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe:
Gender, Agency, Identity
Andrea Pearson, ed.
“Pearson’s goal of providing the first study that addresses this important topic is laudable and her insightful introduction opens up a range of new strategies that invite much further study of early modern women’s portraiture.” Amanda Pipkin, University of North Carolina
Reconfiguring Patriarchal Space: Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) and the Reconstruction of the Gardens of Nurtured Harmony
in Gender, Continuity, and the Shaping of Modernity in the Arts of East Asia, 16th - 20th Centuries
Shopping China in Europe: Samuel P. Avery (1822-1904) and the Collecting of East Asian Ceramics in the United States
in Acquiring Cultures: Histories of World Art on Western Markets
Articles
Nika Elder published "Art History's Image Problem" in Inside Higher Ed.
Kim Butler-Wingfield published "Networks of knowledge: Inventing 'theology' in the Stanza della Segnatura" in Studies in Iconography.
Andrea Pearson published "Sensory Piety as Social Intervention in a Mechelen Besloten Hofje" in Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art.
Nika Elder published "William Harnett Shows His Hand" in Archives of American Art Journal.
Joanne Allen presented "Crowdsourcing the past: The Society for the Study of the Church Interior collaborative online research database" in Rome with Dr. Michael Gromotka of Freie Universität, Berlin.
Joanne Allen reviewed "Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000-1400: Southern Europe and Beyond by Deborah Howard" in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Ying-Chen Peng published "Lingering between Tradition and Innovation: Photographic Portraits of Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908)" in Ars Orientalis.
By Emeriti Faculty
The Italian Expatriates: De Nittis and Zandomeneghi
in Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris 1870-1914
The Power of Feminist Art:
The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact
Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds.
Reclaiming Female Agency:
Feminist Art History After Postmodernism
Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds.
"This is an excellent cross section of current feminist theory. These essays will prove invaluable not simply for students of art history, but for readers interested in the fields of cultural studies, gender theory, sociology, and others. Broude and Garrard have produced another exceptionally important and well-thought-out text!" - Linda Nochlin, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Radical Art
"Radical Art is a landmark study, both in the history of printmaking and in the history of American art of the thirties. There is no better explicator of the graphic arts of this era and their cultural context than Helen Langa. Her thoroughly researched and compellingly written volume is a major scholarly contribution." - Betsy Fahlman, author of John Ferguson Weir: The Labor of Art
American Women Artists, 1935-1975:
Gender, Culture, and Politics
Helen Langa and Paula Wisotzki, eds.
"The wonder of this book is the variety of artists considered and the rich range of scholarly voices illuminating them. Together the essays give us two generations of modern American women who persevered in their art making, often without the support of cultural institutions. The stories of their hard work, determination, and unquenchable drive to speak through their images greatly enriches the historical record and gives the reader the pleasures of discovery and new knowledge." - Wanda M. Corn, Stanford University, USA