Vanderbilt University History of Art Blog

Rebecca VanDiver’s Modern and Contemporary African Art Class Visit Fisk University Art Galleries

“Fisk instagrammed my class visit earlier this week, ” said Rebecca VanDiver, assistant professor of African American art. “Super exciting and we had a great conversation about potential team research to conduct going forward.”

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on February 10, 2017 in HART, HART in Nashville, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Celebrating 2016 Faculty Book Publications at Humanities Center Reception on February 9

Lauren Benton, dean of the College of Arts and Science, will deliver welcoming remarks at a reception on Thursday, February 9, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities in celebration of 2016 faculty book publications in the humanities and social sciences.

Christopher Johns, Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Professor of History of Art, has written a groundbreaking study that examines chinoiserie—European works of art and visual culture that were influenced by Chinese art—in the context of church and state politics, with particular focus on the Catholic missions’ impact on Western attitudes toward China and the Chinese. In his book, China and the Church: Chinoiserie in Global Context (University of California Press, 2016), Johns demonstrates that the emperor’s 1722 prohibition against Catholic evangelization, which occurred after almost 150 years of tolerance, prompted a remarkable change in European visualizations of China in Roman Catholic countries.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on February 8, 2017 in Events, HART, VRC

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A&S Alumna’s Unique Journey Turns Love for Literature into Career in Art

Humanities students often get asked what they plan to do with their degrees. The answer turns out to be “anything and everything.” Vanderbilt humanities graduates work in finance, lead nonprofits, and run their own companies.

Lucy Mensah, who graduated from Vanderbilt with a Ph.D. in English in 2016, is one of the students drawing on her humanities training and taking a path less traveled. Mensah started graduate school in 2011 with the goal of becoming a professor of African American literature. She did not expect doctoral studies in English to open doors to internships and professional experiences at some of the most prestigious art museums in the country.

With guidance from adviser Vera Kutzinski, the Martha Rivers Ingram Professor of English and professor of comparative literature, Mensah developed a dissertation project focusing on the literary and visual representations of black masculinity. Mensah’s passion for studying these representations led her to stints at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

“I realized that in a museum setting, I could integrate my scholarly interests with my interest in handling art objects,” Mensah explained. “And during my final year of dissertation writing, I realized that I like to do a little bit of everything: write, handle art objects, put together exhibitions, talk to potential donors, and educate museumgoers.”

Now in a prestigious one-year fellowship at the Met in the modern and contemporary department, Mensah is one of 65 fellows from all over the globe working with assigned curators who also serve as mentors and advisers.

“I have had the opportunity to learn in depth about museums as an institutional structure,” she said. “It requires a lot of different people to work together in varying capacities to make what it does possible.”

After completing her fellowship with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mensah will take the next step in her career at the Detroit Institute of Art, where she has accepted a permanent position as assistant curator of post-1950 contemporary art, helping with exhibitions, interpretation and acquisitions.

*Reposted from MyVU article (January 24, 2017) by Alex Valnoski; photo credit: www.lucymensah.com

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on February 7, 2017 in HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Betsey Robinson Among Participants in January 25 Roundtable on Classical Legacies

The Robert Penn Warren Center for Humanities sponsors a premodern cultural studies seminar that is hosting a Roundtable on Classical Legacies on Wednesday, January 25, at 4 pm in Buttrick 123. Refreshments will be provided.

Planned in partnership with Vanderbilt’s newly re-organized Program in Classical and Mediterranean Studies, the roundtable assembles experts from the Vanderbilt community for a discussion about new and exciting directions in their fields around the legacies of classical texts, artworks, artifacts, and ideas. Participants are Betsey Robinson (History of Art), Lynn Enterline (English), Elsa Filosa (Italian), Kathy Gaca (Classical and Mediterranean Studies), Jessie Hock (English), and Choon-Leong Seow (Divinity).

If there are any questions about the event, or about the premodern cultural studies seminar, please contact its co-director, Jessie Hock (jessie.hock@vanderbilt.edu).

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on January 24, 2017 in Events, HART, VRC

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Downing Grant Applications Due February 6 for HART Undergraduate Research and Travel

Vanderbilt’s History of Art students are encouraged to apply for a spring 2017 Downing grant by Monday, February 6. The department awards these Downing grants for travel to exhibitions and research centers to supplement academic instruction for HART majors who are in the Honors Program, in advanced seminars, or in upper-level “W” (writing) courses. These grants, which provide assistance for up to $1,500 in travel costs, are awarded in the fall and spring of each academic year.

Applications for the spring 2017 Downing grants—due Monday, February 6—should be addressed to the Downing Grants Committee, c/o Professor Elizabeth Moodey and submitted by email. Please email them to Professor Moodey (elizabeth.j.moodey@vanderbilt.edu).

The application should consist of a detailed proposal of one page explaining the purpose and rationale of the proposed travel; projected costs (accommodation, food, travel expenses, and research costs); and a supporting letter by the instructor in charge of the project.

Jalen Chang, HART and economics major, Class of 2016, was awarded a Downing grant for the fall semester 2015 and traveled to Germany to pursue his research over Thanksgiving break. “In the seven days I spent in Germany, I traveled to Hamburg, Berlin, and Dresden, and saw more than forty Caspar David Friedrich paintings,” said Chang.  “This was crucial to the quality of my project (involving the nationalistic and anti-Napoleonic interpretations of the German painter’s works), as his pieces have a unique and complicated meaning to Germany’s people and history.”

Past Downing Grants have also supported travel for research on photojournalism in post-war Berlin, a Marcel Duchamp installation in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon in the British Museum, and a Gothic reliquary in the Louvre, among others.

*Jalen Chang posed in front of the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin; and Berlin at night

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on January 23, 2017 in HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Expert on Nazi Looted Art to Present Lecture on Tuesday, January 24

The aftermath of Nazi plunder during Hitler’s regime, especially during World War II, still lingers more than 70 years later. Efforts to find looted art and return it to its rightful owners continue on both sides of the Atlantic.

David Glasser, chairman and executive director of the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum of Art in London, will deliver a lecture entitled “Looted Art: Facts, Law and the Moral Imperative” on Tuesday, January 24, at 4:10 pm in Cohen Hall 203. The theme of Glasser’s talk is a call to action. To date, only a small number of the quarter of a million pieces plundered during the Nazi era have been restored. For Glasser, it is an issue of justice that must be pursued and kept alive for generations to come.

Free and open to the public, Glasser’s lecture is cosponsored by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission and Vanderbilt’s History of Art department. For more information, contact Mike Zimmerman, director of education and outreach, Tennessee Holocaust Commission, at 615.854.4263 or email at mike.zimmerman@vanderbilt.edu.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on January 20, 2017 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC

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Leonard Folgarait Shares His Expertise in French Art and Architecture with Alumni in Houston and Paris

The Houston Museum of Fine Arts provided the perfect setting for a recent Commodore Classroom. Leonard Folgarait, Distinguished Professor of History of Art, joined the Houston Vanderbilt Chapter to discuss the work of Edgar Degas and to tour the museum’s exhibit Degas: A New Vision.

Beverly Barrett, BS’97, who keenly recalls taking Folgarait’s Modern Architecture class at Vanderbilt, organized the event with him in mind. “Not only is Professor Folgarait an expert in his field, he is a great communicator and takes a sincere interest in students and alumni. His visit generated enthusiasm for Vanderbilt and great memories for his former students,” she said.

Folgarait’s clever questions kept the audience of 75 alumni and friends engaged throughout his presentation. “We really enjoyed how he connected the paintings to the history of Paris,” Barrett continued. “His knowledge of architectural history and city planning in Paris is very impressive.”

Alumni and friends will also enjoy that insight on French art and architecture during the Vanderbilt Travel Program trip, Paris: City of Light, set for March 4-12. Folgarait has frequently traveled to Paris to teach a Maymester class and knows the city like a native. He will introduce trip participants to hidden gems he has discovered—day trips to Montmartre and Chantilly—as well as enhance their visits to such landmarks as the Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower, and Louvre Museum.

Houston Vanderbilt Chapter President Jason Pierson, Leonard Folgarait, and Beverly Barrett at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on January 18, 2017 in Events, HART, Lectures, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Marilyn Murphy’s Exhibition Opens January 19 in Fine Arts Gallery with a Surreal Twist on Reality

In honor of Department of Art professor and artist Marilyn Murphy, who retires this year after 37 years of teaching, the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery will feature many of her oil paintings and drawings in an exhibition entitled Marilyn Murphy—Realism Subverted. The opening reception is Thursday, January 19, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm in the atrium of Cohen Hall, featuring the artist’s talk at 5:30 pm in Cohen 203.

“Marilyn Murphy likes to play with perception and the act of seeing,” writes Joseph Mella, director of the Fine Arts Gallery. “Rooted in an artistic tradition that has continued to mine the popular culture of cold war America, her aesthetic is largely informed by surrealism, but not limited to it. In her deftly rendered drawings and detailed paintings, Murphy raises the curtain on a world that is quietly subversive and, in many instances, layered with humor.”

Murphy finds inspiration for her subjects in the popular culture of the 1940s and 1950s, presenting them with an attention to light and shadow that creates a sense of mystery and often incorporating dramatic effects from forces of nature—a sign of her years growing up on the Great Plains. She writes that “while occasionally my art has a political element, many of the pieces in this series comment upon the act of seeing, the creative process or some aspect of human experience.”

Her artwork has appeared in more than 380 exhibitions nationally and abroad, and her pieces are in several public and private collections, including the Kemper Collection, the Boston Museum School, Siena Art Institute in Siena, Italy, and the Oklahoma Museum of Art. The Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville mounted a mid-career survey of her work in 2004, and she participated in a two-person exhibition at the Huntsville Museum of Art with Bob Trotman. She is represented by the Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, Adler and Co. in San Francisco, Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, and Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, NC.

A fully illustrated catalog with an introductory essay by Peter Frank, an American art critic, curator, and poet, will be available in the gallery. Marilyn Murphy—Realism Subverted. is organized by the Fine Arts Gallery and is supported, in part, by the Department of Art, with additional support provided by the College of Arts and Science and the Ewers Gift for Fine Art.

On view through March 3, the exhibit is free and open to the public. The Fine Arts Gallery is housed on the second floor of Cohen Memorial Hall, 1220 21st Avenue South, on the western edge of the Peabody College campus. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 am to 4 pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 5 pm.

Marilyn Murphy. In the Clouds, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches, 2016.
Marilyn Murphy. Cane Fire, graphite on paper, 19 x 25 inches, 1989.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on January 16, 2017 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, Lectures, VRC

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Vivien Fryd to Lecture on the Art of Red Grooms On View at the Brooks Museum of Art

The Memphis-area Vanderbilt Alumni Club has invited Vivien Fryd, professor of history of art, to lecture on the art of artist Red Grooms, currently on view at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. The event is scheduled for Saturday morning, January 7, including a guided tour of the exhibition.

Grooms’s treatment of New York City and Tennessee provides the focus for Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent. The distinct bodies of work reflect time spent in these radically different environments, specifically those that most define him as a person and an artist.

Born in Nashville during the Great Depression Grooms studied art in Chicago, New York and at Peabody College. During his time in Tennessee, he encountered the southern storytelling and literary traditions as well as such spectacles as state fairs and the Grand Ole Opry. These experiences were manifest beginning in the late 1950s in his happenings, and from the 1960s on in his films, installations, paintings, prints, and sculpture.

His studies with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown and subsequent immersion in the New York art scene blended with his southern background to produce a vibrant art that celebrates bustling city life. The city provided his subjects: people riding buses and subways, stores, street scenes, parades, and the urban landscape. Although the Tennessee works are quieter and more bucolic, they too teem with telling details—interesting characters, hand-painted signs, and animals.

Like a correspondent, he makes note of people and situations, capturing the salient details that bring a scene to life. The exhibition includes approximately 50 examples of Grooms’s signature three-dimensional paintings, sculptures, installations, prints, and films, spanning 1961 to 2015, thereby providing an excellent overview of his artistic production.

*Image: Red Grooms (American, b. 1937), Tennessee S Curve, 2001. Enamel on epoxy on Styrofoam. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art purchase, Morrie A. Moss Acquisition Fund 2001.10.
© Red Grooms / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on January 6, 2017 in Events, HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Kevin Murphy Addresses the Skyscraper and Future of Urban Development

George Washington had Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson had Monticello. Now President-elect Donald Trump has his eponymous Manhattan skyscraper, Trump Tower. Our first and third presidents saw their plantations as both productive and symbolic of American identity that was rooted in the land itself. President-elect Trump looks out from his tower onto a dense, dynamic cityscape that represents American capitalism.

Washington lavished huge amounts of attention and money on building and furnishing Mount Vernon. Jefferson spent practically his entire adult life constructing, expanding and renovating Monticello. Trump Tower is loaded with polished metal and stone and clad in reflective glass. Will it stand just for the questionable taste of the one percent, or could it stimulate more creative, sustainable approaches to urban development? Read more…

*Kevin D. Murphy is Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities and Professor and Chair of Department of History of Art at Vanderbilt University. His article originally appeared on The Conversation (December 6, 2016) and was reprinted in the PBS News Hour Column (December 7) and the Business Insider (December 8).

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on December 7, 2016 in HART, VRC

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