Department of Art & Art History - School of Arts & Sciences

The study of art at the university level, embedded in the ideals of a liberal arts education, allows students to develop both their creativity and their critical faculties through visual media. Visual and Media Arts Practice and Art History have separate curricula, but links between the two, and other disciplines, are encouraged.

News

AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS 2020-2021:
Professor Agnieszka Szymanska:
Received funding from both the American Council for Learned Societies with the Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art for the 2020-21 academic year and the American Philosophical Society. For more information visit: Szymanska
Professor Elena Calvillo:
Received a Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellowship by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. For more information visit: Calvillo

EXHIBITIONS:
Professor Brittany Nelson:
"The Starry Rift," Die Ecke Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, Chile, March 2020.
"Urania," Sonnenstube, Lugano, Switzerland. November 2019.
Professor Tanja Softić:
Exhibition of prints and lecture "Contemporary Variations of Mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodcut)" at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (University of Buenos Aires, School of Philosophy and Literature), November 2019.
"Contemporary Variations of Japanese Engraving," Museo Etnográfico Juan B Ambrosetti, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 2019.

LECTURES:
Professor Driscoll:
"Anti-Racist Contemporary Art History," a Society of Contemporary Art Historians Executive Board Member, Professor Driscoll along with fellow board member Natilee Harren moderated an informal conversation with invited presenters and participants. October 2020. Organized by SCAH.

PUBLICATIONS:
Professor Tanja Softić:
Essay "Circle Back: Immigrant Memories and Fungal Networks," Journal of Speculative Philosophy 33, no.2 (2019): 300-10.
Alumnae Elizabeth Montague, UR'18: Luck of the Draw, written by Marin Cogan. Washington Citypaper, September 19, 2019.

RESEARCH:
Professor Elena Calvillo:
Participated in a scholars day at the National Gallery of Art on the 16th-century artist "Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain," Washington, DC, November 2019.
Will continue her research on early modern Iberia and travel to Madrid, Spain to view an exhibition dedicated to the female artists Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana at the Prado Museum. December 2019.
Art History Student Kate Wiley received the 2019 Harnett Summer Research Fellowship. She Co-curated "Satire and Social Criticism: Prints by William Hogarth from the Collection" and "The Age of Hogarth and Piranesi: Masterpieces of 18th-C. European Printmaking" alongside Richard Waller, Executive Director of UR Museums.

Faculty Highlights

Softic Published
Tanja Softić, professor of art and chair of the department of art and art history, published an essay in the series "Artists Quarantine with their Art Collections" in Hyperallergic, a contemporary art and culture magazine.
Softic Featured
Tanja Softić, professor of art and chair of the department of art and art history, was featured in Dis/placements: Revisitations of Home presented by Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at College of Charleston.
Szymanska Awarded
Agnieszka Szymanska, Assistant Professor of Art History, has been awarded $70k in support for her new book, Sacred Spectating: Monastic Architecture and Spirituality in Late Antique Egypt, from the American Council for Learned Societies and the American Philosophical Society.
Calvillo awarded
Elena Calvillo, Associate Professor of Art History, has received a Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art for her book project, Rome in Translation: Cultural Brokerage in Sixteenth-century Italy.
Calvillo published
Elena Calvillo, Associate Professor of Art History and Art History Coordinator, published “L’epopea in un guscio di noce: Giulio Clovio e la questione della scala dimensionale" in the first volume of a new series on Michelangelo Studies published by the Casa Buonarroti museum in Florence.
Smith On Display
Professor Sable Elyse Smith’s work will be on display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Philadelphia in the exhibition’s third installment entitled Banal Presents. On view starting September 13.
Smith at ICA
Professor Sable Elyse Smith’s work will be on display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University. The exhibition Great Force will be on view starting October 5.
Nelson Exhibition Reviewed
Professor Brittany Nelson’s exhibition “10,000 Light Years From Home” at Chicago’s PATRON Gallery was reviewed by Frieze and Art in America, calling the work “a poignant meditation on love, isolation, and queer desire."
Nelson on Display
Professor Brittany Nelson’s work is on display at the Cosmological Arrows exhibition at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm, Sweden. The exhibition is open now until November 10.
Smith Opens Exhibition
Professor Sable Elyse Smith’s solo show will open at the Carlos Ishikawa Gallery in London on November 6.