Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Bonded By Nature: The Prevalence Of Landscape Subjects Within Abstract Expressionism And Their Sources In American Art, Aileen F. Marcantonio

Theses and Dissertations

Landscape subjects reappear throughout Abstract Expressionism. Although it is often overlooked, landscapes were perhaps a natural subject for a group of artists that were known to work from their environment. When we focus on the landscape subjects, we gain a better understanding of Abstract Expressionism and its place within the canon of American art.

"Never Forget": Embodied Absence And Extended Relations Of Care After 9/11, Sophie L. Riemenschneider

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a reflection on how loss was articulated in the wake of 9/11. The terror attacks engendered a memorial style that sought to give shape to grief, acknowledging it without filling it in or erasing it. This new style, which I term embodied absence, exists across a range of mediums, from literature to architecture. It is such a potent memorial form because it also captures the traumatic process, which is prolonged, layered, and potentially open-ended. However, despite their ability to mirror the nature of trauma, instances of embodied absence never verbalize the attacks’ root trauma—the disconnect between our …

The U.S.–Mexican War: Visualizing Contested Spaces From Parlor To Battlefield, Erika Pazian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The U.S.-Mexican War[1] (1846-1848) was a watershed event that transformed the North American continent politically, socially, and ideologically. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Mexico lost approximately half of its national territory in the north, and the United States acquired the modern states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, and portions of Colorado and Wyoming. Both nations were plagued by internal conflicts after the war, and each was plunged into civil war within fifteen years of its conclusion.

During this time of turmoil, Mexican and U.S. artists created and recreated myriad images …

Dating Deborah Hall: A Portrait Reconsidered, Brian E. Hack

Publications and Research

The elaborate, full-length portrait of Deborah Hall (1766, Brooklyn Museum) is one of the landmarks of Colonial portraiture, having earned its place in the canon for the pictorial innovations displayed by its creator, the enigmatic William Williams (1727-1791). The dominant narrative holds that Hall, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Philadelphia printer David hall, tends her roses in an imaginary Garden of Love, surroundings Williams adapted from symbols of beauty and chastity found in emblem books of the period. The scholarly assumption is that the painting served to promote Deborah's marital suitability to potential suitors visiting the Hall residence. The current …

The Integration Of Art, Architecture, And Identity: Alfred Kastner, Louis Kahn, And Ben Shahn At Jersey Homesteads, Daniel S. Palmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the New Deal, the United States government created the Jersey Homesteads co-operative in order to help a group of Jewish immigrant garment workers from New York City during the economic downturn of the Great Depression. This dissertation examines how a 1930s utopian enclave utilized modernist art and architecture to express the radical back-to-the-land agrarian idealism and socialist ideology of its settlers. The flat-roofed, concrete buildings that housed these Jewish garment workers were designed by German architect Alfred Kastner (1900-1975), with his then unknown assistant Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974). These unornamented, functionalist buildings adapted avant-garde European architectural forms into an …

The Adobe Frontier, Christopher J. Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations

The Adobe Frontier is a documentary film about Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello—together known as “Studio Rael San Fratello” —and their work connecting contemporary technology with the legacy of pottery making and adobe architecture in the Southwest United States.

Matson Jones, Jasper Johns, And Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking The Boundaries Of Advertising And Art, Ximena Santiago

Theses and Dissertations

Matson Jones, formed by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, has scarcely been the focus of art historical scholarship. This thesis examines works created for New York City department store window displays, revealing that the Matson Jones collaborations were rooted in intersubjectivity and challenge historical hierarchies of high and low art.

Kinstitution: A Topia Between Archive And Proposal, Christopher Lineberry

Theses and Dissertations

Situating Topher Lineberry's work, this paper offers a primer on institutional critique, preliminary developments of "kinstitutional critique," and the cultivation of family-derived art history through the work of the artist's grandmother, Helen Lineberry. Feeding into a working understanding of family-and-kin-as-institution, the paper ultimately locates Topher Lineberry's work between relations to place, historical archives, and speculative proposals.

Intersections: Art And The Museum As Sites For Civic Dialogue, Nenette Luarca-Shoaf

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This essay describes the structure, pedagogy, and intent behind “Intersections,” a gallery program at the Art Institute of Chicago that occurred monthly between November 2016 and March 2020. The program, which continues less frequently and in a virtual format today, positions artworks as catalysts for helping people make sense of current events and timely issues. In doing so, it reframes adult learning in the museum as collaborative, dialogic, and open-ended, rather than setting up an experience that is primarily expert-driven and informational. Art historical methods such as visual analysis and consideration of primary source texts, along with collaborative learning activities …

Decolonizing The Classroom: Native American Art History, The Voice Of Indigenous Students, And Community-Oriented Teaching, Nancy Palm Puchner

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

As a professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, I seek to understand the role of Native students in the teaching of Native art history, while not losing sight of the potential dangers of asking minority students to somehow represent or speak for an entire race. Like museums, the classroom is a historically colonizing space, but also an important site for revolution and transformation. In my course on North American Indian Art, in which roughly two-thirds of the students identify as Native, I strive to expose students to a range of Indigenous arts and crafts and the theoretical …

African-American Art History: Reflections On Expanding Pedagogy In 21st Century Liberal Arts Contexts, Judy Bullington

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

An undergraduate seminar on African-American Art History was used as a case study to explore how critical perception skills may be developed through the implementation of interactive exercises. Active looking, creative connections, and experiential learning were among the pedagogical approaches embedded into the content. The goal was not to write a revisionist history of the subject matter but to utilize existing resources to reconfigure how the historical narrative may be discussed and articulated through diverse vantage points. Examples of assignments are provided as models and SoTL thought experiments. Reflections upon the definition of ‘critical perception’ versus ‘critical thinking’ and ‘visual …

Building Pedagogy: Studying Architecture And Preservation In American Art And Architectural History, Kate Kocyba

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

In this essay I discuss how my course attempts to broaden the definition of the American architectural canon by bringing in the discipline of preservation and, by extension the discussion of vernacular architecture. Throughout the course students are given assignments meant to engage with all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. By highlighting specific assignments such as a National Register of Historic Nomination Form, and a student led class discussion on Colonial Williamsburg I will show how students engage with the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. At the same time this essay demonstrates how a course on architecture of the United States …

Making American Art An Engaging General Education Course, Anne Verplanck

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

Humanities courses are often populated with students who primarily take these offerings to meet General Education requirements. American art classes can provide opportunities for students to think analytically and consider what is included as well as what is omitted in visual and textual formats. This article provides examples and the pedagogical rationales for a range of in-class and out-of-class activities that enable active learning, critical thinking, creativity, and kinesthetic engagement. Creating on-line resources to replace a textbook, taking field trips on or adjacent to campus, and exhibition critique and label-writing activities can be easily adapted to campus- and online-learning settings …

Guest Editor Introduction: Cultivating Our Field Through Sotl Practice: Teaching And Learning The Art History Of The United States, Julia A. Sienkewicz

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

No abstract provided.

Art After Dark: Economies Of Performance, New York City 1978–1988, Meredith Mowder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Art After Dark: Economies of Performance, New York City 1978-1988 examines the interwoven social and economic histories of New York City and performance in the late 1970s and 1980s. The dissertation traces the growth and visibility of performance art, moving from the recession of the 1970s and early years of public funding for the arts, to the downtown nightclub scene of the 1980s, the history of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, and artistic experiments with television in the 1980s.Looking closely at the economic conditions under which performance occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s, this dissertation …

Shared Idiosyncrasies: Stuart Davis And Giorgio De Chirico, Virginia Melvin

Theses and Dissertations

Within the scholarship produced on Stuart Davis, the influence of twentieth century European avant-garde artists has been identified as critical to his growth and establishment of an idiosyncratic style. Missing in these studies is the exposure and impact of the Metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico on works produced by Davis between late 1927 through 1929. The influence of de Chirico’s Metaphysical paintings on Davis becomes evident when comparing stylistic techniques applied by Davis to those pioneered by the Metaphysical artist.

Quality And Simplicity: Rebecca Salsbury James, Folk Art, And Modernism In The United States, Caroline Seabolt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the work of Rebecca Salsbury James and its contributions to the development of interwar modernism in the United States. Using mediums traditionally employed by folk artists, reverse painting on glass and the colcha stitch, James expressed her interest in quality and simplicity with a proto-feminist sensibility.

Bernice Lee Bing’S Art And Spiritual Practice, Lin Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Living and working in northern California between the late 1950s and 1990s, abstract painter Bernice Lee Bing practiced Zen, Nichiren, and Nyingma Buddhism. This thesis studies what the visual and conceptual impact of these spiritual practices had on her abstract and visionary paintings.