Vanderbilt University History of Art Blog

Vivien Fryd to Lecture on Early American Women Modernists at the Portland Museum of Art

Georgia O’Keeffe, Florine Stettheimer, Marguerite Zorach, and Helen Torr found space for creativity that was separate from their male counterparts.  Each created unique paintings, contributing to the evolution of experimental avant-garde works in Manhattan.  Vivien Fryd, professor of history of art, will examine the art and careers of these four pioneering artists and their contributions to early American modernism in a July 14 lecture, “A Voice of One’s Own:  Early American Women Modernists,” at the Portland Museum of Art, Maine.  Fryd’s lecture is being held in conjunction with the current exhibition, “O’Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach:  Women Modernists in New York,” on view through September 18.

In presenting works by these artists together and connecting their careers in New York City, this exhibition offers valuable perspectives on the meaning of modernism, the life of a working artist in New York in the early 20th century, and the shared and differing experiences of being women at a crucial moment in first-wave feminism.

Artists were radically breaking with all traditions in art, inventing a new visual language that responded to the experience of living in a new century. As creative ideas took hold in the sciences, modern artists created new ways of seeing the world through formal experiments.  Fryd will explore the talents, relationships, privilege, and influences that enabled each woman to invent her own distinctive approach to modernism.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on July 11, 2016 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC

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Millie Fullmer Reflects on Her Lazenby Library Fellowship at Cheekwood

Beginning in January of this year I embarked on a part-time, six-month fellowship as part of a historic initiative to reinstate Cheekwood as an American country era estate.  A furnishing plan was created for the purpose of researching and reviving interior elements of the residence as they were originally intended by the Cheek family and their residential and landscape architect, Bryant Fleming, from New York.  The plan included the family’s library, which was fortunate enough to receive a substantial donation of books from the Lazenby family that included similar titles—sometimes identical—to those owned by the Cheeks.  Information was gleaned from a variety of historical documents, and a 1932 household inventory played a key role.

My first assignment was to create a comprehensive inventory of the donor’s collection in their Belle Meade residence.  Unexpectedly during this initial phase of the project the Lazenby family sold their home, which resulted in the transfer of nearly 800 volumes of books to the mansion in a matter of days.  Luckily we were able to draw up a temporary loan document since there was not sufficient time to produce a donor agreement.

The next step was assessing the conservation and preservation needs of the collection.  In addition to selecting an antiquarian book restorer, I needed to source “do-it-yourself” tools such as preservation paste and cleaning sponges to treat the leather-bound books.

Another part of the process was working with Cheekwood’s digital asset management system, known as “EmbARK Gallery Systems,” designed specifically for the museum’s art collection rather than books.  A system was devised that customized their metadata schema to better accommodate book records and allowed an import from an Excel spreadsheet.  The final phase included book appraisal and exhibition planning, although the latter will require revisiting closer to installation in the spring of 2017.

Working on this unique project provided a fascinating insight into the Cheek family, 1930s book trends and reading habits, the Depression era in the South, private libraries, and education.  Certainly, the result of this historic initiative can only enhance a visitor’s experience on encountering the mansion.

— Millie Fullmer, interim director of visual resources, Department of History of Art, Vanderbilt University

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on July 4, 2016 in HART, HART in Nashville, VRC

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Margaret Walker Reveals Storied Past of Fine Arts Gallery Painting

My path to museum work began with degrees in both history and art history and an interest in the intersection of art and war.  With many artworks, what is visible presently is only the beginning of the story,  Madonna and Child with St. Anne, a Northern Renaissance devotional scene by Goswyn van der Weyden (ca. 1399-1464), is one such painting.

This artwork is part of Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery’s Kress Collection, providing a meaningful provenance in and of itself.  Prior to Mr. Kress’s acquisition, though, it was wrapped up in a story of Nazi-era confiscated art.  Spoiler alert: Vanderbilt’s ownership is perfectly legal and conscionable.  In 1938, the Nazis confiscated the art collection of Richard Neumann, including a diptych by Maarten van Heemskerck that ended up in the Austrian National Museum.  Austria would not allow the diptych’s exportation in 1949, when Neumann was a refugee in Cuba, so he accepted instead a deal of this painting and the balance of the diptych’s under-market value in cash.

In 2011, the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery was contacted by Neumann’s grandson, Thomas Selldorf, about the value of this painting because the Austrian National Museum had agreed to restitute the original van Heemskerck diptych, given the family reimburse them for the value of the 1949 agreement.  I am always dismayed that we cannot simultaneously display van der Weyden’s painted biblical scene with the frame and panel’s intricate, storied verso. Luckily, it’s a different case for publication, and you can see how both sides tell a unique story.

—Margaret Walker, art curator assistant, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery; reprinted from Nashville Arts Magazine (June 2016)

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on June 30, 2016 in Fine Arts Gallery, HART, VRC

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Shirin Neshat’s Photographs Given to Fine Arts Gallery To Spark Cross-Cultural Dialogue at Vanderbilt

Two compelling photographs from Shirin Neshat’s monumental series Our House is on Fire (2013)—created in the wake of the Arab Spring—were recently given  to the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s Art as Activist program.

Vanderbilt is one of 33 colleges and universities chosen as a recipient of this gift, which is intended to spark cross-cultural dialogue about international issues and religious and political divides, and to facilitate collaboration between academic departments and university museums and galleries.

Shirin Neshat, an Iranian-born visual artist currently working in New York, has made her home country’s turbulent history the subject of high art.  She captures Iran’s sharp contrasts in black and white, and her art is marked by its exploration of gender and violence in society and life in exile.  Neshat says her art is about “people who fight power versus people who hold power.”

While these images of Ghada (above) and Sayed (below) from Our House is on Fire, both taken in 2013, at first appear simply to be photographic portraits, highlighting the sitters’ faces against a black background, one will notice a thin, fuzzy surface layer on close observation.  Calligraphy is often layered on the people in her photos.   Neshat has inscribed calligraphy by the Iranian poet Mehdi Akhavan Sales across the wrinkles and folds of her subjects’ faces as a metaphor for the effect of a national calamity on these individuals’ lives.

Juxtaposed with the poem in Farsi and its English translation, these photographs are on rotating display in less traditional art spaces around campus—Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, Department of Political Science and the Ingram Commons, Vanderbilt’s Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, and Department of Religious Studies.  Here they will best serve their intended purpose—as a means of sparking conversations and reflection on difficult topics in these disciplines and in today’s world.

Although she primarily works in photography, Neshat won the 2009 Venice Film Festival Silver Lion award for best directing in her feature-length film Women Without Men.  She was one of four recipients of the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award in 2014 for her impact and commitment to improving the state of the world through art.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on June 29, 2016 in Fine Arts Gallery, HART, VRC

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Millspaugh Fund Supports Conservation Work For Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery

As part of an ongoing effort to conserve key artworks in the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery’s collection, Juno and Argus, Guardian of the Jupitern Herds was restored earlier this year and welcomed back for use in teaching and exhibitions.

This seventeenth-century Flemish painting is of the School of Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), who was a student of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640).  The artist has depicted a scene from the story of Jupiter and Io in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Io, Jupiter’s young, mortal lover, was turned into a beautiful white cow to save her from his jealous wife, Juno.  Not fooled by her husband’s trick, Juno captured Io that she might never be turned back into a woman again. Juno found a hundred-eyed man, Argus, who in our painting holds Io by the horn, to watch over the cow day and night to prevent Jupiter from stealing her. The peacocks atop Juno’s golden stair foreshadow the end of the fable, when Argus is lured into sleep and slain by Mercury, and Juno plucks out his hundred eyes to adorn the feathers of her beloved bird.

This fable was painted by both Rubens and Jordaens, and their influence on the artist of our painting is clear in both choice of subject matter and the billowy, baroque handling of Juno’s clothing and Argus’s flesh. The conservation treatment was performed by Cynthia Stow of Cumberland Art Conservation, Nashville. The painting was cleaned, inpainted where there were losses, and secured with archival backing.

Funds for conservation of this and other artworks in the Fine Arts Gallery’s collection were provided by the Kathryn and Margaret Millspaugh Fund for Art Conservation.

This sixteenth-century painting of Saint Sebastian by Liberale da Verona (Italian, 1445-1525/1529), part of the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection at Vanderbilt, is shown snugly packed for its upcoming journey to the Conservation Center at NYU’s Institute for Fine Arts.—Margaret Walker, art curator assistant, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on June 28, 2016 in Fine Arts Gallery, HART, VRC

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HART Graduate Anna Greene Researches Surrealism and Advertising at MOMA Through a Downing Grant

Over the past four years of my college career, one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences I had was receiving a Downing grant for undergraduate research travel.  Under the direction of Leonard Folgarait, professor of art, I was studying the relationship between Surrealist art and advertising—a paradox between an artistic movement rooted in a separation from societal norms, versus modern society’s obsession with materialism.

I traveled to New York City during Vanderbilt’s spring break and had the opportunity to search through the exhibition archives of the Museum of Modern Art.   I focused specifically on René Magritte and Salvador Dali, two well-known Surrealist artists who also worked in advertising throughout their careers.  I found contemporary documents, letters, and photographs that allowed me to further understand this connection and obtain a better grasp of the complicated relationship both artists had with the society in which they existed.

I am moving to NYC to work in investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.  Already missing art history classes!!—Anna Greene, BA’16, shared the Cooley Prize with Francesca Salvatore for the highest grade point average in the history of art.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on June 28, 2016 in HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Stephanie Storey: To Succeed in Business, Major in Art History

I hear it all the time from high school and college students (and their parents):  to succeed, you must major in science, technology, engineering, or business.  Any other degree is a waste of time.  A frivolous hobby.

And an art history degree?!  Completely useless.  The brunt of the joke.  Let me set the record straight:  that thinking is false and becoming more false every day.

Today, our society is reliant on visual storytelling.  Instagram, snapchat, everything on your computer or phone is visual.  Pictures drive clicks.  The more compelling a picture, the more eyeballs you draw, the more product you can push.

While others in college focus on numbers, art history students are developing a visual vocabulary and learning to tell compelling stories with a single image. An art history major can look critically at smash TV shows, viral videos, or marketing campaigns and deconstruct that content in visual terms.  No matter what your numbers guys tell you, they cannot predict what will work and what won’t based on analytics.  But someone with a command of the visual language can tell you whether an image will have an impact.

I am specifically talking about Art History.  I’m talking about being educated in the history of perspective, color, composition, style, rhythm, disegno.  I’m talking about being able to mentally reference images that have moved people for hundreds of years.  If we can understand why and how the Sistine Ceiling, Rembrandt’s portraits, Van Gogh’s landscapes, and Munch’s Scream still touch us today, then perhaps we can help all our businesses connect more effectively in this crowded, competitive visual landscape.

If Leonardo da Vinci had focused only on budgets, he never would have spent over a decade tinkering with the Mona Lisa.  If Monet had based his decisions on marketing analytics, we would not have Impressionism.  If Georgia O’Keeffe had listened to a focus group, she never would have painted a single flower.

On one television show I produced, one network executive (with that valued business degree) was so data-driven that he dictated content choices based on 50-person focus groups, instead of looking at the product to see what was working.  Needless to say, that show failed when it should have succeeded.

If the powers that be had more understanding of content—both written and visual—they would have more monetary, award-winning successes.

So students, if you want to major in art history, but are having a difficult time convincing your parents to pay for that “useless” degree, tell them that art history is your path to decoding our visual world; tell them you can make money as an expert in imagery.  Parents, encourage your kids to study art history; they might just make something great.

And businesses, hire that art history major over that business major. Because in our modern society, those with a knowledge of our visual history will succeed. And those without it might not be able to compete.

Stephanie Storey graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1997 with a BA in Fine Arts (joint Art History and Studio Art) degree.  She also has a Master of Fine Arts from Emerson College.  She is an award-winning television producer in Hollywood, and her debut novel, Oil and Marble (art historical fiction about the real-life rivalry between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo) received a rave New York Times review and is a Los Angeles Times bestseller.

*While in Nashville on a book tour for Oil and Marble, Storey presented the ideas expressed in this essay to Prof. Vivien Fryd’s class in late April.  The essay was posted in The Huffington Post on May 24, 2016.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on June 9, 2016 in HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Fine Arts Gallery Exhibit Opening June 10 Explores Poetry and the Landscape Tradition

“Pastorals, Landscapes, and the Arcadian Vision,” on view at the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery from June 10 through September 9, explores how artists  for centuries have rendered nature in a tranquil, idyllic form.  The exhibition, housed in Cohen Memorial Hall on the Peabody campus, features more than 50 paintings and works on paper from England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries.

A sense of nostalgia and longing for a return to the simple life first found voice more than 2,000 years ago in the work of Theocritus (316-260 BCE), the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry.  Following in his footsteps, the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BCE), in his Eclogues and Georgics, popularized the simple Arcadian shepherd, a rustic type who was thought to subsist solely on the meat and milk of his goats.  Arcadia is a mountainous region located in the Peloponnesian peninsula.  In ancient Greece, its very remoteness from civilized society, represented by Athens, equated to country life in its purest form.

From its inception, the idea of Arcadia, focused on an idealized landscape inhabited by simple shepherds tending their flocks, was a fiction created for an educated, urban audience.  They consumed this rustic, pure space through poetry and visual arts, which have worked in tandem over the centuries to conceptualize the majesty of nature and man’s relation to it.

Holdings from the University’s art collection begin to relate the story through the seventeenth-century Dutch Italianate painters and printmakers Jan Both and Nicolaes Berchem and with delightful, intimate etchings by the Dutch genre artist Adriaen van Ostade.  These works reflect the widely held contemporary view that nature should be improved upon in poetry and painting.

The exhibition traces the steady popularity of landscapes in France through the works of Claudine Stella (1636–1697), Philippe Caresme (1734–1796) and Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867).  Additionally, there are two small woodcuts by Aristide Maillol (1861–1944), created as illustrations to Virgil’s pastoral poems, Georgics and Eclogues.

Also included are paintings and prints by English and American artists.  While the dates of these landscapes span several centuries, the close connection between poetry and the visual arts is the thread that links them together.  Thomas Nason’s Connecticut Pastoral (1936) represents the longevity of this relationship, as Nason was one of Robert Frost’s primary illustrators in the early 20th century.

“Pastorals, Landscapes and the Arcadian Vision” is organized by the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery and curated by Joseph Mella, director, with support provided by the Ewers Gift for Fine Art and the Sullivan Art Collection Fund.

Free and open to the public, the gallery is on the second floor of Cohen Memorial Hall, located at 1220 21st Avenue South on the Peabody College campus.  Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, noon–4 p.m.; Saturday, 1–5 p.m.; and closed Sunday and Monday and July 4 in observance of Independence Day.  For more information, visit the gallery’s website or call 615-322-0605.

“The Herdsman’s Cottage” or “Sunset” by Samuel Palmer, 1850

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on June 7, 2016 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, VRC

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Chris Strasbaugh Appointed Digital Resource Archivist and Curator at Ohio State

After six years as HART’s Director of the  Visual Resources Center (and master chef on pancake days), Chris Strasbaugh recently left Vanderbilt for Ohio State University, where he will serve as the Digital Resource Archivist and Curator within the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture.

“It is with great regret that I accepted the resignation of Christopher Strasbaugh, our Director of Visual Resources,” said Kevin Murphy, department chair.  “Over the course of the years he has been with us, Chris has overseen our transition to digital teaching and helped all of us to integrate digital images and other computer-based technologies into our classroom presentations and research.  Although we will seriously miss Chris, we wish him the best of luck in his exciting new position at Ohio State.”

While at Vanderbilt, he led the development of a free, open-source cataloging and digital asset management system—DIMLI  (Digital Media Management Library)—developed for digital humanities professionals to catalog and describe cultural objects.  In addition to supporting HART faculty, staff, and students with classroom technologies and disseminating up-to-date information about useful trends in technology and software, he cultivated collaborations across the university to share and exchange resources and ideas.

“Chris is a tremendous leader—kind, patient, creative, encouraging, and ever positive (the list goes on and on!),”  said Ginger Smith, a former Vanderbilt colleague.  “As one of his assistant curators for several years, I found myself eager to get to work every day.  The working environment that he intentionally creates strongly contributed to my high level of job satisfaction.  I know Vanderbilt will miss his sunny presence.”

In his new role as archivist and curator, Chris will oversee the archives containing blueprints, models, and designs from the past hundred years for the Knowlton School’s three academic sections:  architecture, landscape architecture, and the newest addition, city and regional planning.  He also will work with students and alumni to showcase their work in exhibits.  Each section offers undergraduate and graduate programs of study to a combined student population of nearly 900 students.

Active in the VRA (Visual Resources Association) as a conference presenter and panelist, Chris was elected to a two-year term as vice president of conference programming (2015-2017).  As a VRA board member, he had a major role in planning the joint ARLIS/NA (Art Libraries Society of North America) + VRA conference held in Seattle this year.  He is returning to Vanderbilt on June 2-3 to participate in a symposium entitled “Cultural Heritage at Scale,” which is co-sponsored by Vanderbilt Libraries, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He will address “Linked Open DIMLI:  Why the Semantic Web Matters for Cultural Heritage.”

Early last summer he did archaeological fieldwork as a photographer for the Greek-American Excavations near the ancient harbor of Kenchreai, the eastern port of Corinth, in southern Greece.  He and his wife Leah will return to the excavation site for two weeks in June to continue their work with Joseph Rife, Associate Professor of Classical Studies.

Chris  is, in a sense, returning home.  A native of Ohio, his roots are firmly planted there.  Chris builds bridges wherever he goes, and he will be greatly missed by faculty, staff, and students alike here in Cohen and across the University.  Thank you, Chris, for these past six years.  Although we are sad that you will no longer be with us, we know your new position at Ohio State holds great promise for you and most importantly, that you will be much closer to your Ohio families.

 

 

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on May 31, 2016 in HART, VRC

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HART Majors and Minors and Their Families Honored at Graduation Reception

Kevin Murphy, chair of the History of Art department,  faculty, and staff honored our majors and minors and their families at the department’s annual reception for graduating seniors on Thursday, May 12, in the atrium of Cohen Memorial Hall.

Following Murphy’s warm welcome and introduction of the faculty, awards were presented and outstanding students recognized for their accomplishments.  Christopher Johns, Goldberg Professor of History of Art, introduced Jalen Chang as an honors student graduating with the “highest distinction.”  Chang defended his undergraduate honors thesis, The Politicized Sublime:  Napoleonic Influence on Caspar David Friedrich’s Landscapes, on April 8, described by Johns, his thesis advisor, and the faculty committee as “one of the most memorable and provocative.”   

Sheri Shaneyfelt, senior lecturer and director of HART undergraduate studies, presented the Cooley Prize ($150 each) to Anna Greene and Francesca Salvatore for the highest grade point average in the history of art.  Jalen Chang and Bella Thornton-Clark were recognized as runners-up ($100 each), and John Elam received an honorable mention ($75).

Elizabeth Moodey, assistant professor of history of art, recognized Jalen Chang (fall 2015) and Anna Greene and Hannah Ladendorf (spring 2016) as recipients of the Frances and John Downing Undergraduate Research Travel Awards earlier in the academic year. These grants, which provide assistance for up to $1,500 in travel cost to exhibitions and research centers, are awarded in the fall and spring of each academic year.

Moodey also recognized the graduating seniors in her HART 2288 seminar (Art of the Book)— Anna Greene, Mary Helen Johns, Francesca Salvatore, and Daniel Weitz—who were among the curators for an exhibit titled Book as Art:  Medieval Necessity and Modern Invention, on view in the lobby of the Heard Library through March 2017.

Mireille Lee, assistant professor of history of art, also taught an exhibition course this spring—Exhibiting Historical Art:  What is this thing? (HART 3810W)—and introduced the graduating seniors in that class:  Clancy Taylor and Daniel Weitz.  Out of the Vault:  Stories of People and Things, a student-curated exhibition exploring the dynamic relationships between people and things, is on view through September 9 in the Fine Arts Gallery housed in Cohen Hall.

The Department of History of Art congratulates our graduating majors and minors:  Jalen Chang, Anna Childress, John Elam, Anna Greene, Hannah Ladendorf, Gabrielle Rheinboldt, Francesca Salvatore, Clancy Taylor, Bella Thornton-Clark, Lisa Valcarenghi, Daniel Weitz, and Hope Whalen (majors); and Lucy Gonzalez, Mary Helen Johns, Sophia Jorasch, Taylor Linn, Katharine MacFarlane, Margaret Macon, Jacqueline Moorhead, Katerina Rosen, Matthew Statman, and Cesar David Vargas (minors).

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on May 16, 2016 in Events, HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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