University of Pennsylvania
Deptartment of the History of Art
Archived News Items

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March 26 - April 3, 2008 • The Penn Cinema Distinguished
International Scholar Series Presents Laura Mulvey

Schedule:

Wednesday, 3/26/08 7:00 pm
Introduction and Q&A by Mulvey
Screening of Agnès Varda's /Cinevardaphoto/
International House, 3701 Chestnut Street
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Thursday, 3/27/08 5.30 pm
Screening of DV on Visual Pleasure essay followed by public Q&A
Institute for Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th Street
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Monday, 3/31/08, 5:30 pm
Lecture on City Girls, Flappers, and Feminist Film Theory
Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut Street
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Tuesday, 4/01/08, 7:00 pm
Intro and Q & A by Laura Mulvey
Public screenings of Riddles of the Sphinx / Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti / Amy!
International House, 3701 Chestnut Street
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Wednesday, 4/02/08, 5:00 pm
Pedagogy workshop: Laura Mulvey on teaching formal film analysis;
William Boddy on teaching Television Studies
401 Fisher-Bennett Hall, 3340 Walnut Street

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"Photography By Other Means" lecture by Kaja Silverman,
Class of 1940 Professor of Rhetoric and Film,
University of California, Berkeley

SACHS FORUM EVENT
Thurs. 2/28/08 5:30pm @ Institute of Contemporary Art

Renowned cultural critic Kaja Silverman will explore the work of Gerhard Richter, who does
not view the photographs with which he works as "cultural constructions," as we have become
habituated to doing. They constitute, rather, "solicitations from the past, blasted out of the continuum
of time;" they "drop" on his "doormat," like "nature." In her talk, Kaja Silverman will explore how
Richter responded to two such solicitations: one embodied by a group of concentration camp
photographs, and the other instantiated by a series of photographs documenting the arrest,
imprisonment and deaths of three members of the German terrorist group, the RAF. Richter found
the concentration camp photographs—which he published side by side with some pornographic
photographs in the Atlas—to be “unpaintable.” Although for eleven years he feared that the same
might be true of the RAF photographs, he ultimately succeeded in painting them.

The result is the monumental work, October 18, l977, now owned by MoMA.
What made it possible for Richter to produce this work was a complex and ever-expanding
network of figural relations, which had at its center Paul Klee's Angelus Novus, and Richter's
three paintings of his daughter, Betty. Already in l988, this constellation reached backward in
time to include the concentration camp photographs published in the Atlas. Since then, it, has
grown to include Richter's great abstract triptych, January, December, and November, as
well as a date etched in black in our own memories: September 11, 2001.

Silverman will present her talk in two parts. In the first, she will show that analogy was already
the basis of Richter's aesthetic in the mid-sixties, when he painted his early photo-pictures.
It was through this form of relationality that he brought together painting and photography.
Analogy also plays a decisive role in his later abstract work, rendering the latter richly referential.
Initially, Richter created analogies in which similarity predominates over difference. Later, however,
he became interested in ones in which difference predominates over similarity. Silverman will end
the first of her presentations with the most notorious of these latter analogies: that linking the
concentration camp photographs to the pornographic photographs.

In her second presentation, which will follow closely from her first, Silverman will argue that
Gerhard Richter began working with another kind of analogy in l977, when he produced his
first two Betty paintings. He did so in the wake of the events documented in the RAF photographs.
It was this new kind of analogy, which has many of the properties of what Benjamin calls
"Messianic time," that permitted him to elaborate the figural network described above, and that
renders it so open to the future.

This event is sponsored by the Sachs Forum in Contemporary Art, a public program of special
lectures, panels, and other events related to contemporary art and culture. It is organized by ICA
and the History of Art department at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Larry Silver Inaugurates Penn's Hebrew University Exchange

Larry Silver spent the Fall 07 semester as the Roberta and Stanley Bogen Visiting
Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on a new Penn faculty exchange
program. Several Israeli scholars have already visited the University of Pennsylvania
through the program, but Professor Silver was the first Penn faculty to return the exchange.
His teaching in Jerusalem included a pair of courses: History of Prints (in conjunction with
the Israel Museum print room), and a Rembrandt lecture-discussion. He returned to Penn
to teach Art History 002 and a seminar on princely courts (with Art History's Julie Davis)
this semester.

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Penn Meets East Meets West... In Venice!

Professor Julie Davis is leading students to the Biennale in Venice this fall for a
Spiegel Freshman Seminar titled "Contemporary Art in East Asia and the World."
The seminar investigates issues that confront artists from East Asia working in
today's contemporary art world. Prof. Davis is encouraging students to reflect
on the terms that constitute the definition of the "contemporary" and investigate
how related concepts may – and may not – pertain to artists working outside the
European and American contexts. The centerpiece of the course is a five-day
trip to Venice to examine first-hand the engagement and representation of
East Asian artists at the Biennale--the most venerable contemporary art exposition
in the world--and to evaluate the creative, intellectual space accorded them
in the international market.

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Penn Students Invade Normandy!

During Fall Break, Professor Robert A. Maxwell will lead students to Normandy and
southern England as part of a site seminar called "1066." The seminar is studying the
artistic production in the period immediately before and after the Norman invasion.
The class will explore monuments first-hand to asses the quality and nature of this
cultural clash, investigating what "conquest," "colonialism," and "national identity"
meant to Normans and Saxons. The class will study sculpture and architecture at
Bayeux, Caen, Jumieges, London, Winchester, Canterbury; castles at Dover and
Falaise; illuminated manuscripts at Rouen and Winchester; and of course the
greatest testimony to the Norman invasion, the Bayeux Tapestry (all 229 feet of it!).

The class, part of the Department's site seminar series, is generously sponsored
by an anonymous donor.

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Upcoming Changes in the History of Art Major

This fall, several important changes in the History of Art undergraduate major
are expected to go into effect.

The changes will not affect rising seniors (class of 2008), but rising
sophomores (class of 2010) will be governed by the new rules, and rising
juniors (class of 2009) may choose between the current major and the new major.

The changes involve the distribution requirement, outside course electives, and
the comprehensive exam. There is also a new methodology seminar.

> Click here for more details

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Conversation: Richard Serra and Lynne Cooke

Thursday, October 25, 5:30 PM
Meyerson Hall B1, 201 South 34th Street

A conversation between sculptor Richard Serra and curator Lynne Cooke, who collaborated
on the recent retrospective of Serra’s sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art.

More information at:
http://www.icaphila.org/events/

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Welcome! Open House on August 31 and September 4

August 2007

Dear Class of 2011 and other new students,

Welcome! We hope that Penn's world-famous History of Art Department will be among
the first places that you discover when you get to campus. Our home is the lovely Jaffe
Building, right next to the main library. Stop in between 10 and 4 on Friday, August 31,
or Tuesday, September 4, if you'd like to learn more about our courses or simply to visit
one of the prettiest places on campus. We'll have coffee and cold sodas.

Although our home base is comfortable and small-scale, the History of Art Department
is ready to introduce you to all of the huge and exciting world of the visual arts. We think
that "learning to look" is an essential part of modern education, because visual signs and
symbols are now the predominant medium of communication. Our prize-winning teachers
will demystify this kind of visual communication while also introducing you to the artistic
creativity of almost every period in history. We can also help you explore the art our own
time, in part through our collaboration with the exciting programs in Visual Studies and
Cinema Studies.

History of Art courses make the greatest possible use of the artistic riches that surround us;
we regularly visit the architecture of the region and the treasures in Penn's and Philadelphia's
museums. Some of our seminars organize exhibitions in those museums and galleries;
others travel to the places that they study.

This fall, we offer many courses that are specifically designed for new undergraduate
students:

ARTH 001 is a sweeping survey of the "built environment" that introduces students to the
interrelated fields of architecture and art history. Professsor Lothar Haselberger, trained as
an engineer and archaeologist as well as a historian, teaches ARTH 1, and he’ll do his best
to reveal the secrets of the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Pantheon, the soaring Gothic cathedrals,
St. Peter's, St. Paul's, and a sampling of the masterpieces of modern architecture.

ARTH 109 (Film Analysis & Methods) is cross listed with Cinema Studies and introduces that
exciting field of study. The instructor is Dr. Meta Mazaj

VISUAL STUDIES 102 (Two Dimensions: Form and Meaning) is an introduction to the field of
Visual Studies and an exploration of the basic concepts of two dimensional studio practice and
visual communication. Students work with such traditional drawing materials as charcoal and
pencil as well as new media, including digital photography. The instructors are Colette Copeland
and Professor Jackie Tileston.

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Professor Holod Awarded a Collaborative Research
Grant from the Getty Foundation for the Study of a Medieval Kurgan

Renata Holod, Professor and Warren Woodfin, Visiting Scholar in the History of Art
Department, University of Pennsylvania, together with Oleksander Halenko (Institute
of History of Ukraine, Kyiv), Vitaly Otroshchenko and Yuri Rassamakin (Institute of
Archaeology, Kyiv, and the excavators of the kurgan) have formed a team to study the
burial of a Qipchak khan in the Pontic steppe of southern Ukraine. The grave goods
are a luxurious assemblage of gold - embroidered silk costumes, preciousmetal objects,
ceramicvessels, paradearmor and horse trappings. Clustering around a late twelfth -
early thirteenth century date, they are of diverse origins: products of Islamic Syria,
Byzantine Asia Minor, Kievan Rus’, and Western Europe. With the support of a Getty
Collaborative Research Grant, our research seeks to understand how this array of
artifacts arrived in the possession of this steppe leader, and how they were interpreted
as expressions of power on the borders between the Mediterranean and Eurasian worlds. 

For more information on the project, see: www.chingul.org.ua

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Crimes of Omission at ICA: April 20 - August 5, 2007

A "crime of omission" is defined as the failure to act upon a legal duty or responsibility.
In this exhibition, the title refers to artistic strategies that remove visual traces of a crime
or draw attention to injustices that typically go unnoticed. Viewers may initially overlook
the criminal references in the works, allowing them to have an extended engagement
with these contemporary artworks that will be presented as open-ended questions
rather than foregone conclusions. "Crimes of Omission" will be on view in ICA's Project
Space from April 20- August 5, 2007.

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Sachs Program in Contemporary Art Begins

The ambitious program established by Katherine Stein Sachs and Keith L. Sachs
to support the study and appreciation of contemporary art at Penn kicks off in September
2006 with the arrival of Dr. Richard Meyer as the Sachs Visiting Professor. Dr. Meyer, who
received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, is a renowed specialist in
twentieth-century American art, cultural studies, and the history of photography. He is
particularly interested in how discourses of gender and sexuality have shaped modern
art and criticism. His book, Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in
Twentieth-Century American Art (2002) won the Eldredge Prize, the book-of-the-year
award of the National Museum of American Art. The University of Southern California,
where Dr. Meyer has taught since 1996, has awarded him the Raubenheimer award for
outstanding teaching, research, and service.

At Penn, Professer Meyer will teach History of Photography (ARTH 293) in the fall, a
graduate-level seminar in the spring, and a year-long curatorial seminar at the Institute
of Contemporary Art (ICA). Professor Meyer is also coordinating the Sachs Forum in
Contemporary Art, a collaboration between the ICA and the Department of the History of
Art to sponsor special lectures, panels and other events.

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New in 2006-07: Sachs Forum in Contemporary Art/ Spring Events

The Sachs Forum in Contemporary Art, made possible by the generous support of Katherine Stein
Sachs and Keith L. Sachs, is a year-long program of special public lectures, panels, and book
launches, highlighting contemporary art and culture. The Forum is a collaboration of Penn's Institute
of Contemporary Art and Department of the History of Art and is coordinated by Sachs Visiting
Professor Richard Meyer.

MIGRATION OF FORM
Roger M. Buergel, Artistic Director, Documenta 12
Thursday, January 11, 5:30 pm, Logan Hall, 402

WAY OUT ON A NUT
Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History,
Rochester University
Thursday, February 1, 5:30pm, ICA Auditorium

POSTPONED: PHOTOGRAPHY BY OTHER MEANS
Kaja Silverman, Class of 1940 Professor of Rhetoric and Film,
Univeristy of California
The Sachs Forum lecture by Professor Kaja Silverman, planned
for Thursday, March 22 at the ICA, will be rescheduled for next fall.

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Usable Pasts? American Art from the Armory Show
to Art of This Century

March 23 and 24, 2007

Nine speakers ranging from recent Ph.D.s to established scholars will present new research and
fresh perspectives on art in the United States between the landmark Armory Show of modern art in
1913 and the 1942 opening in New York of Peggy Guggenheim's influential Art of This Century gallery.
The symposium will take place on the Penn campus and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Modern Indian Works on Paper:
Post-Independence Art from a Private Collection

Assisted by several art history majors, Professor Michael Meister has curated an exhibition
of modern artworks from India as part of his ARTH 301 seminar "Art in Contemporary India."
Premiering at the Penn's Arthur Ross Gallery, the traveling exhibition features 64 modern
and contemporary owned by Umesh and Sunanda Gaur (named among the “Top 100 collectors”
by Arts & Antiques Magazine). The exhibition runs from January 13 til March 11, 2007 and is
supported by the Department of the History of Art and the South Asia Center. For more
information, visit: Modern Indian Works on Paper: Post-Independence Art from a Private
Collection.

For more information on the exhibition, see: http://www.upenn.edu/ARG/

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Dramatic Impressions:
Japanese Theater Prints from the Gilber Luber Collection
at the Arthur Ross Gallery, March 17—May 6, 2007

Guest curated by Frank Chance and Julie Nelson Davis with support from the Luber Foundation.

This exhibition showcases selected woodblock prints from the Gilbert Luber collection showing the
dramatic expression of the kabuki actor on stage. In addition to featuring an exceptional group of
finely produced Osaka actor prints from the early nineteenth century, the exhibition will also include
remarkable actor studies produced by the modern artist, Natori Shunsen (1886-1960), between
1916 and1929. The exhibition examines how both early modern and modern print designers
developed a vocabulary of visual forms recreating the effects of staging, pose, make-up and costume.
A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

For more information about the exhibition, see:
http://www.upenn.edu/ARG/ • Dramatic Expressions Penn Press Catalogue

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Dr. Kinga Araya is Mellon Postdoc in 2006-07

Video and performance artist Kinga Araya, who earned her Ph.D. in art history and visual arts
in 2004 from Concordia University, has been awarded a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the
History of Art by the Penn Humanities Forum. Dr. Araya's art has been showcased in more than
a dozen solo exhibitions in Canada, Spain, and Poland. Her work often explores exile and identity.
The installation artist Krysztof Wodiczko and conceptual artist Adrian Piper have been the subjects
of her scholarship, and she has written widely on performance art. At Penn, Dr. Araya will teach a
freshman seminar each semester, beginning with "Postmodernity and Performance: Walking in
Metropolis".

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Acting Modern: A symposium for the exhibition Dramatic Expressions

The Center for East Asian Studies and the Department of the History of Art are also co-sponsoring
a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition, to be held March 31, 2007. The papers will engage
issues concerned with Osaka print production and subjects; the Shin-hanga revival of woodblock
printing in the early twentieth century; the 1923 Great Kantô earthquake; and Kabuki in the twentieth
century; among others. There will also be a collector’s and curators’ forum on the exhibition.
Speakers will include: C. Andrew Gerstle, SOAS, University of London; Sarah Thompson, MFA Boston;
Kendall Brown, CSU Long Beach; Gennifer Weisenfeld, Duke; Shirley Luber, Philadelphia; and
Yoshie Endô, Frank L. Chance, and Julie Nelson Davis from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Byzantinist Robert Ousterhout Joins Faculty

Professor Robert G. Ousterhout will move to the Department of the History of Art in January
2007. A leading archaeologist and historian of Byzantine art and architecture, Dr. Ousterhout
has taught at the University of Illinois since 1983, where he has chaired the program in Architectural
History and Preservation. The church of the Chora monastery in Istanbul, now known as the Kariye
Camii, has been a major focus of Professor Ousterhout's attention and the subject of two books and
numerous articles. His recent books include the magisterial Master Builders of Byzantium (1999) and
Byzantine Settlement in Cappadocia (2006). Cappadocia remains at the center of his research.

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New in 2006-07: Sachs Forum in Contemporary Art

The Sachs Forum in Contemporary Art, made possible by the generous support of Katherine Stein Sachs
and Keith L. Sachs, is a year-long program of specialpublic lectures, panels, and book launches, highlighting contemporary art andculture. The Forum is a collaboration of Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art and Department
of the History of Art and is coordinated by Sachs Visiting Professor Richard Meyer.

Fall events include:

"Felix Gonzalez-Torres: America, Then and Now"
Lecture by Nancy Spector
Thursday, September 14, 5:30 PM, at the ICA

"Art, Sex, and Censorship in the 1970s"
Conversation of Anita Steckel with Richard Meyer
Thursday, October 19, 5:30 PM, at the ICA

"Fugitive Artist: The Early Work of Richard Prince"
Lecture by Michael Lobel
Thursday, November 30, 5:30 PM, at the ICA

download flyer

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"Trouble in Paradise" at the University of Pennsylvania Museum

Class-Curated Show of Polynesian Clubs runs April 29 through December 31, 2006 in the second
floor Dietrich Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
3260 South Street in Philadelphia. Intricately carved and uniquely designed Polynesian war clubs
made in the 19th century are the focus of Trouble in Paradise: The Art of Polynesian Warfare, a
special exhibition researched by sixteen University of Pennsylvania student co-curators--undergraduates
in the Art History 301 Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar led by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Associate
Professor of History of Art.

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Petruccioli Workshops in Urban History:
Professor ATTILIO PETRUCCIOLI
Dean, Faculty of Architecture
Politechnic University of Bari, Italy

Friday, October 27th, 2006, 3:30–5pm
Learning From the Urban Mediterranean Fabric:
Antanka, Tartous, Algiers
Saturday, October 28th, 2006, 10-12:30 pm
Approaches to the Urban Fabric:
The Typological School of Bari

Both events at The Department of the History of Art
Jaffe Building, University of Pennsylvania, room 201
– light refreshments will be served –

Download PDF for more information.

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Penn-Princeton Conferences in Medieval Art

The University of Pennsylvania and the Index of Christian Art (Princeton Univ.) are jointly organizing two back-to-back conferences that highlight the art and thought of the Medieval period:

Representing History, 1000-1300: Art, Music, History (October 28th and 29th 2006), held at the University of Pennsylvania is interdisciplinary conference in Medieval Studies. This conference brings art history and music into dialogue with historical studies to draw out the strategies shared by these fields in the realm of historical “representation.” 

Romanesque Art and Thought (October 26th and 27th 2006), held on the Princeton University campus explores the art of the Romanesque period. Papers consider the historiography of the period, methodological questions, and case studies of Romanesque masterpieces.

For mor information:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/medieval/
http://ica.princeton.edu/conferences.html

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Sachs Chair in Contemporary Art

The University of Pennsylvania invites applications and nominations for the new Katherine Stein Sachs and Keith L. Sachs Professorship in Contemporary Art. The position is tenured and will begin in the fall of 2006. See the University press release at http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=863

The Sachs Professor will join a department with six other modern specialists, strong collaborative ties to the university's Institute of Contemporary Art, and a large commitment to programs in this field. In addition to research, responsibilities include the full range of undergraduate and graduate instruction, advising, and administrative service. 

PhD and strong record of teaching and scholarship are required. Curatorial interest or experience is desired.  

Send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and a few sample publications to:
Professor David Brownlee
Department of the History of Art
University of Pennsylvania
Jaffe Building
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6208

The review of applications will begin on November 1, 2005, and continue until the position is filled. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

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Two New Americanists: Michael Leja and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw

This fall the Department welcomes two distinguished scholars of American art, upholding the tradition launched by Emeritus Professors John McCoubrey and Elizabeth Johns. Professors Michael Leja and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw will join Adjunct Professor Kathleen Foster, the McNeil Curator of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in mounting a program of scholarship and teaching that will bring Penn to the forefront in American art studies

Michael Leja, previously the Sewell Biggs Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History at the University of Delaware, is one of the nation's leading scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art. His first book, "Reframing Abstract Expressionism. Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s" (1993), moves freely across media and from high art to low while interrogating the philosophy and psychology of New York painting in the generation of Jackson Pollock. It won the Eldredge Prize
in American Art. "Looking Askance. Skepticism and American Art from Eakins to Duchamp" (2004) explores the seemingly native skepticism with which Americans have viewed art and other visual phenomena, tracing this back to P.T. Barnum's gallery of faked oddities and forward to the making and reception of Marcel Ducamp's "readymades" in New York. Leja's powerful analysis disrupts notions about the separation of art and audience. In fall 2005 he will teach ARTH 298 (American Art 1865-1968).

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, a wide ranging scholar of American, and African-American art, comes to Penn from Harvard, where she was Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture and of African and African American Studies.

"Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker" (2004), her first book, places the work of a controversial contemporary artist within a long artistic tradition and also reads it in terms of today's racial politics. Next year, her exhibition "Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century" will be mounted at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts,with an accompanying book of the same title. With Richard Powell of Duke University, she is co-editing the Encyclopedia of African American Art and Architecture, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2007. At Penn this fall, Professor Shaw will teach ARTH 588 (Proseminar in American Art).

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Two Mellon Postdocs Visit in 2005-2006

Two outstanding scholars have been awarded Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships and will be joining the Department for the academic year 2005-06.

Dr. Lynn Ransom comes to Penn from curatorial positions at the Walters Art Museum of Baltimore and the Free Library of Philadelphia, working in the Manuscripts departments of both institutions. Dr. Ransom earned her doctorate from the Univ. of Texas-Austin specializing in Gothic manuscripts. While a member of the Humanities Forum, she will be pursuing research on the imagery of Franciscan meditational manuscripts and teaching Freshman seminars on the book arts.

Dr. Stephen Petersen is a specialist of contemporary art. He was awarded his doctorate at the Univ. of Texas-Austin, writing a dissertation on the work of Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein, and has taught at the Universities of Delaware and Pennsylvania. While at Penn's Humanities Forum, he will teach courses on contemporary American and European art (including an on-site seminar at the Venice Biennale) and pursue research on the exchange of words and images in post-WWII art.

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Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminars

In curatorial seminars, undergraduate and graduate students work with faculty to study a subject and mount an exhibition in one of the University's galleries.  The first Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar will be taught 2004-2005
by Professor George Marcus.  The subject is the work of Charles and Ray Eames, who were central figures in American design in the 1940s and 1950s, creating seminal designs for furniture, films and multi-media exhibitions. The course
will explore their achievements and create an exhibition for installation in the Arthur Ross Gallery in the summer of 2005. 

A second Halpern-Rogath seminar is scheduled for spring 2005, when Professors Larry Silver and Michael Cole will teach a course on the printmaking work of Renaissance and Baroque artists who are better known as painters. Students will study this important but rarely considered material and help to prepare an exhibition called "The Painter-Etcher," which will be assembled from major collections in the United States and hung in the Ross Gallery in spring 2006.   

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The Passing of Dr. Paul Watson

Dr. Paul Watson, associate professor emeritus of the history of art and assistant dean of advising in the College, died
on May 15 at the age of 65 from complications after a fall. Dr. Watson—a native of Toronto—received his B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1962, and earned a Ph.D. in art history from Yale University in 1970.  He joined Penn’s faculty
in 1968 as an instructor, teaching Italian, medieval and Renaissance art, became assistant professor in 1970 was appointed associate professor in 1976. He became emeritus in 2000.  He also served as undergraduate chair of his department from 1997 and continued his engagement with undergraduates in retirement as College advisor.

A specialist in the Italian Renaissance, he was one of the first scholars to investigate the domestic paintings known as cassoni, betrothal chests decorated with subjects from classical mythology or poetic allegory.  He also innovated the study of painted birth salvers in a pioneering article, and made numerous connections between Italian pictures and texts by classical and Renaissance authors.  His research into Italian secular art culminated in the publication of his opus magnum, The Garden of Love in Tuscan Art of the Early Renaissance (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1979),
in which he explicated a range of paintings and prints that linked late medieval courtly love subjects to Renaissance Florence.  He retained a strong interest in the connections between Boccaccio and later Renaissance painting, which resulted in numerous publications.  A number of studies on Raphael, particularly his Vatican fresco of “Parnassus,” remained an abiding scholarly fascination.

In his latter years of teaching, Dr. Watson’s academic focus on Italy shifted from the secular to the sacred, in which he brought both his extensive knowledge and deep commitment to the Roman Catholic Church to bear on the analysis of Renaissance art and architecture.

He is survived by his daughter, Amanda; and a sister, Jean Smith.  Donations may be made to St. Agatha-St. James Church and may be designated to repair its stained glass windows.

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60-Second Lectures

Professors Karen Beckman and Renata Holod answered the School of Arts and Sciences' challenge to deliver a public address in just one minute. See and hear their 60-Second lectures!

October 5, 2005
Karen Beckman
Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Department of History of Art
"Crash"

September 29, 2004
Renata Holod
Professor, Department of History of Art
"Site of Sight, Right of Sight, and Rite of Sight: Exploring the Cultures of Seeing"

Transcript:

Cultures of seeing. For 30 years at Penn I’ve been investigating cultures of seeing, from the ground up and from the air down. And basically I’ve come to an understanding that cultures of seeing, that is, to see, consist of three parts. And they are simply described as the right to sight, the site of sight, and the rite of sight. Okay? Rite of sight, last one, r-i-t-e, how it is that you go about seeing, and how various societies structured this seeing. The site of sight. Where a thing is often influences what we actually learn about it, how we actually take it in. And the first one, which is the right to sight. Today we assume that everybody saw everything at every time. And of course we know that it’s not true. So there are varieties of treasures hidden in treasure houses and museums that actually at their own time of making were never seen more – by more than a handful of people. I want you to think about this.

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Lothar Haselberger Wins the Abrams Teaching Award

The highest teaching honor of the School of Arts and Sciences has been awarded to Lothar Haselberger, Morris Russell and Josephine Chidsey Williams Associate Professor. Professor Haselberger, who serves as undergraduate chair of History of Art, is praised by faculty and students alike for his courses in ancient architectural history. A colleague writes, "In his teaching he combines [his scholarly] gift with energy, imagination, and vision, charging his students with an irrepressible enthusiasm and inviting both graduates and undergraduates to join him as junior colleagues in research and publication."

Created in 1983, the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching recognizes teaching that is intellectually challenging and exceptionally coherent and honors faculty who embody high standards of integrity and fairness, have a strong commitment to learning, and are open to new ideas.

From the SAS press release, 26 April 2004

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Karen Beckman is the First Jaffe Professor

Dr. Karen Beckman has been named the first holder of the Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Professorship.  A specialist in the history of photography, film, and other new media, Professor Beckman will offer crucial support to the new program in Cinema Studies.  Dr. Beckman completed her B.A. in English from Cambridge University and studied German philosophy and literary theory at Göttingen before earning her Ph.D. at Princeton with a dissertation that won the Council of Graduate Schools' Distinguished Dissertation Award.  Having held a two-year Whiting postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Beckman has served most recently as assistant professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Rochester. Her first book, VANISHING WOMEN (2003), was the runner up for the 2004 Katherine S. Kovacs Award, the "book of the year" prize of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies.   

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Elective Affinities: 7th International Conference on Word & Image Studies 

The University of Pennsylvania hosts the 7th International Conference on Word & Image Studies (23-27 September 2005) sponsored by the International Association of Word-Image Studies.  The conference, organized under Goethe’s notion of “elective affinities” explores the apparently contradictory and hostile positions that words and images may assume when brought into close relation.  As one of the characters in Goethe’s book objects, such affinities are problematic and “are only really interesting when they bring about separations.”

The History of Art Department is playing a leading role at this international assembly. Faculty participants include Profs. Renata Holod, Ann Kuttner, Robert A. Maxwell, Michael W. Cole, Christine Poggi, and Karen Beckman, who are chairing sessions organized around Ancient, Islamic, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern, and Contemporary works. Several faculty, as well as graduate students, are also presenting papers at the conference. Professors Peter Stallybrass (Penn) and Yve-Alain Bois (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), and author Art Spiegelman will offer keynote lectures.

The following graduate group members are part of the organising committee: Catriona MacLeod (conference chair), John Dixon Hunt, and Liliane Weissberg. Julie Schneider (School of Design) is the conference co-chair.

For more information please visit: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/affinities


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