American Art and Architecture Commons^™

On Petrochemical Fantasies: The Art And Energy Of American Comics, Mike Classon Frangos

Criticism

Petrochecmical Fantasies: The Art and Energy of American Comics by Daniel Worden. The Ohio State University Press: Columbus, 2024. Pp. 171. $34.95 cloth.

Cartography, Botany, And Violence In The Codex Rodriguez-MondragóN, Maria Davison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Sandy Rodriguez deploys the visual language of the Florentine Codex and other sixteenth-century Mesoamerican sources to examine the persisting effects of colonialism on people and land in Mexico-U.S. borderlands in Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón (2017-present), her ongoing series of maps, botanical illustrations, and landscape paintings.

Challenging The Gaze: A Feminist Interpretation Of The S.M.S. Mail Art Collection, Karissa A. Krievins

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In the late 1960s, many people called for radical, immediate change to America’s political, societal, and cultural structures. The artistic practices of the time reflected the social and political realities of the moment and played a crucial role in advocating for change. The title of the 1968 S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop) subscription art portfolios was a bold and urgent call for action, challenging artists and audiences alike to confront the pressing injustices of the era and inspire a collective awakening to the necessity of transformative change across the United States. Despite a fifty-six-year gap, today we are …

Ghost Highway: De-Touring Albuquerque's Route 66, Madison A. Garay

Art & Art History ETDs

Route 66 was a U.S. Numbered Highway stretching from Chicago, IL to Santa Monica, CA, rising to fame through music and popular culture. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Route 66 has a troublesome twin life as Central Avenue, a highly politicized space where bodies are contested. In this thesis, the function of public arts and architecture of Albuquerque’s main street thoroughfare, Central Avenue, will be analyzed as visual devices of U.S. Highway 66, or known in popular culture as “Route 66.” I employ a critical Derridean framework through Mark Fisher’s theorization of hauntology and Gerald Vizenor (White Earth Ojibwe)’s theory of …

Frieze Symmetry Patterns Of Pennsylvania German Fraktur, Lorelei Koss

LASER Journal

Fraktur is an American folk art developed by German-speaking communities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina during the 18th and 19th centuries. This art form features ornate calligraphy combined with illustrations of flowers, birds, angels, and geometric border designs. It was often used for birth and baptismal certificates, religious texts, educational materials, and public notices. Fraktur commonly incorporates frieze pattern designs. Artistic designs based on frieze patterns appear across a wide range of cultures, and research has shown that cultural groups tend to favor certain types of frieze patterns. This paper investigates which types of frieze …

Midwestern Landscapes, Immigrant Hands: Swedish Artists And The Regionalist Movement, Grace Finney

Celebration of Learning

The Regionalist movement in American art attempted to define an authentic national identity through depictions of the American landscape, rural life, and working-class values and communities. From the mid-19th to early 20th century, over a million Swedes immigrated to the United States, many of whom settled in the Midwest, a region frequently depicted by Regionalist artists. Swedish immigrant artists captured the beauty of the same landscapes, portrayed similar rural values, and even created public art, all of which are defining elements of the Regionalist movement. Their artistic expressions align with the themes of Regionalism, yet they remain absent from the …

Creating Possibilities: The Ethelind Pope Brown Collection: An Overview Of Who May Have Illustrated America's Oldest Naturalist Paintings, Maksym Dedenko

University Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the Ethelind Pope Brown Collection at the University of South Carolina, a rare assembly of hand-illustrated naturalist artworks depicting an assortment of flora and fauna from the eighteenth century. Despite its artistic and educational value, the creator of the collection remains unidentified. Through close textual and visual analysis, archival research, and comparative stylistic study, this project explores several potential authorship theories while providing background to the necessity of evolving science that facilitated its creation.

Considering The Ethics Of Conserving American Art: White Nationalism And The Evolving Meanings Of Nineteenth-Century Genre And Landscape Painting, Evan M. Crocker

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the stylistic and conceptual qualities of American genre and landscape painting from the antebellum period and how these qualities acted in service to establishing white nationalism before the Civil War. The intricate and calculated system of typing in genre painting presented carefully crafted idealizations of quintessential Americans, defined by their whiteness and maleness. Landscape painters of the early- to mid-nineteenth century endowed their compositions with a sense of wondrous opportunity which justified and upheld westward expansion under Manifest Destiny. At the intersection of genre and landscape practices sits plantation paintings—specifically house portraits—in which the plantation serves as …

The Seeming Beginning: The Drawings Of Dorothy Hood, 1942-1986, Natalia Lopez

Art History Theses and Dissertations

The notable career of American artist Dorothy Hood (1918-2000) spanned nearly six decades which she witnessed, and contributed to, the transformative shifts in art history from the 1940s through the late 1990s. Today, Hood is known as a cult figure in her native Houston, celebrated for her large-scale abstract paintings that are said to evoke the expansive Texas skies. While these paintings create a large portion of Hood’s oeuvre, they represent only a fraction of her prolific artworks. Equally significant are her meticulously detailed and surreal drawings, which form a substantial, often overlooked portion of her legacy.

Hood’s drawings embody …

Visibly Invisible: Reclaiming Atlanta Black Architecture Through Black Expression, Sean M. Spencer

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Architecture has long grappled with questions of self, community, and cultural identity. While the number of Black architects is growing, architecture that genuinely reflects Black identity remains rare. This lack of representation has contributed to a sense of invisibility for Black communities within the built environment—whether by design or neglect. There is an urgent need to define and celebrate Blackness and Black space in ways that reflect the cultural richness of Black communities. As George Will points out, broad labels like African American or African often obscure the unique cultural experiences within Black communities. Historically, the lack of economic and …

The Intersection Of Spirituality, Commerce, And Art In The Work Of William Keith, Joan Gallagher

Theses

This thesis examines the nineteenth-century Tonalist artist William Keith, focusing on how he successfully integrated commerce, art, and spirituality to achieve financial success, artistic innovation, and spiritual depth. While scholars often emphasize the symbolism and religiosity in his work, they tend to overlook his financial accomplishments. This study explores Keith's background, religious influences, and artistic development within the cultural, economic, and social context of nineteenth-century America. As a Tonalist, Keith produced popular works for the art market; as a Swedenborgian, his art reflected the spiritual principles of that faith. Unlike his East Coast counterparts, Keith’s California-based landscapes captured the dramatic …

Cuentos De Barro, Daniel Anthony Vasquez

Theses and Dissertations

Cuentos de Barros addresses the complexities of creating art and processing indigenous heritage and personal history as a Salvadoran immigrant within a neo-colonial society. Centering ritual, care, and healing, the artist imbues sculptures with tenderness using abstract forms and the tactile manipulation of unfired clay and graphite.

The Imposition Of A Narrative Line: The Bildungsroman As Form In Contemporary Art, Brianne Chapelle

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work of contemporary American artists and writers Moyra Davey, Chris Kraus, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms within the context of feminist art history, theory, and practice in the post-1970s artworld. While often read as autobiographical or self-referential, their work across media uses personal narrative as a means of engaging broader theoretical and institutional concerns. Through the literary form of the bildungsroman, these artists employ narrative, fiction, and memoir—often through new and time-based media, but also through interdisciplinary modes rooted in writing—to reflect on their ongoing education as artists within an increasingly globalized Euro-American artworld. By …

Quantifying The Transformation Of The Built Environment As A Result Of Cooper River Bridge Construction In Charleston, South Carolina, Catherine Claire Jackson

All Theses

The demolition of historically undervalued vernacular architecture for the construction of transportation projects has created a large-scale, cumulative loss of architectural heritage nationwide. This thesis quantifies the architectural loss caused by the construction of the series of Cooper River bridges in peninsular Charleston and Mount Pleasant. This study assesses the transformation of the built environment as a result of each bridge’s construction by determining the quantity of architectural loss, identifying forms and materials of architectural loss, and differentiating the effects of bridge construction on the more rural Mount Pleasant side compared to the urban peninsular Charleston side. Also assessed in …

The Horror Of Memory In The Southern Gothic, Caelainn Robertson

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Scenes of expansive cotton fields and rotting Manor houses lined by moss covered oaks where strange fruit once hung induce an acute sense of horror from an audience familiar with these relics. The genre of “Southern Gothic” spans literature, film and music and is built on themes of cultural repression in the Southern United States. This tradition explores fears rooted in lingering memories of human enslavement and patriarchal domination. In a culture marked by racial violence and class oppression, evil is, often, identifiable by markers of wealth and white skin. Historical memories only exacerbate suffering. Many contemporary works use the …

3rd Place Contest Entry: Clement Hurd And The Artistic Integrity Of Illustrated Children's Books, Cassandra Chan

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Cassandra Chan' submission for the 2025 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won third place. It contains their essay on using library resources, their bibliography, and a sample of their research project on the work of illustrator Clement Hurd.

Cassandra is a fourth-year student at Chapman University, majoring in Art History. Their faculty mentor is Dr. Justin Walsh.

Gone With The Wind: The Confederacy's Trojan Horse, Skyler J. Shipp

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper analyzes the film Gone with the Wind as a piece of Southern nationalist propaganda. This includes an exploration of the earlier Southern nationalist film Birth of a Nation, as well as a comparison to Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind. In my analysis of Gone with the Wind’s production process, including memos between producer David O. Selznick and other members of the production team, I find that Selznick maintained tight control over the film’s production and was extremely concerned with maintaining positive publicity for his film. This led him to allow a few seemingly progressive …

Aesthetics And Hidden Orientalism In Chicago's Nickerson Mansion, Julie Treumann

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis offers new research on the Sitting Room at the Nickerson Mansion, an 1883 Gilded Age-era house in Chicago, IL. As a rare extant example of neo-Islamic interior design, it provides a new lens on Orientalism in American domestic architecture and a new perspective on Mrs. Nickerson, a little-known female tastemaker of her time.

The Evolution Of Heritage: How Three Iconic American Jewelry Houses Have Navigated Their Legacy, Emily Vanderford

MA Theses

This thesis explores the evolution and preservation of heritage of three iconic American jewelry houses: David Webb, Harry Winston, and Tiffany & Co. Through a detailed examination of their foundational design philosophies, the impact of ownership changes, and responses to modern trends and cultural shifts, this study investigates how each house has navigated the balance of tradition and innovation. Archival research, published materials, and analysis of design practices have revealed the influence of each house’s foundational principles as well as the challenges posed by evolving markets and ownership. This research highlights the strategies that have allowed each house to remain …

Artistic Interventions In The Public Sphere: Keith Haring & Jenny Holzer, Matilde Sirolli

MA Theses

This thesis investigates the intersection of art and the public sphere in late 1970s and 1980s New York, a period characterised by significant socio-political and cultural transformations. Grounded in Jürgen Habermas’ conception of the public sphere, the study examines how the unique historical phenomena of the period yielded unprecedented opportunities for artists to intervene in the public sphere. The research provides a comprehensive analysis of the period’s political, economic, cultural and sociological landscapes. It then delves into case studies of Keith Haring and Jenny Holzer, exploring their distinct approach to public engagement: Haring’s blend of art, commerce and populism, and …